Berryman v. Hotel Savoy Company

117 P. 677, 160 Cal. 559, 1911 Cal. LEXIS 547
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 23, 1911
DocketL.A. No. 2591.
StatusPublished
Cited by47 cases

This text of 117 P. 677 (Berryman v. Hotel Savoy Company) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Berryman v. Hotel Savoy Company, 117 P. 677, 160 Cal. 559, 1911 Cal. LEXIS 547 (Cal. 1911).

Opinion

MELVIN, J.

Plaintiff sought an injunction to restrain the defendant corporation from violating a certain building restriction contained in a deed from the common grantors of the predecessors in interest of both parties. Judgment was given in favor of defendant and we are called upon to consider appeals from said judgment and from an order denying plaintiff’s motion for a new trial.

There is very little, if any, material difference between the parties respecting the facts of the case, the only serious subject of controversy being the proper interpretation of the *562 building restriction contained in the original deed, and the effect of a subsequent quitclaim deed whereby the original grantors sought to release the present defendant from any binding force of such restriction.

In July, 1901, Abbott Kinney and Matilda Dudley were the owners of the Bay View Tract in Santa Monica. Three lots and part of a fourth (all adjoining and forming one parcel) were sold to Abner L. .Ross, defendant’s predecessor in title. The deed of conveyance from Kinney and Dudley, parties of the first part, to Ross, contained in addition to the usual covenants in a deed of grant, bargain, and sale, the following: “It is provided and covenanted with a covenant running with the land herein conveyed that a building and improvements shall be erected upon these premises to be maintained as a first-class hotel, to cost not less than five thousand ($5000.00) dollars, and the main part thereof shall be located not less than seven (7) feet from the front line and eight (8) feet from the N. E. side line and twelve (12)' feet from the S. W. side line of said lot, which spaces between buildings and side lines are to be maintained as flower gardens, and all front porches shall be kept open and unobstructed on the front and ends thereof ; said hotel to be erected and opened within sixty (60) days from date hereof. . . . And, it is hereby covenanted that if the hotel should be removed from said grounds or should be destroyed by fire or other elements, that parties of the second part shall rebuild said hotel or make other improvements on said lots to the full value as heretofore agreed upon and on failure so to do within one year, the said party of the second part, his heirs or assigns, shall reconvey the said premises to the parties of the first part, their heirs or assigns, on payment of twelve hundred and fifty dollars.”

The hotel was constructed in accordance with the covenant above quoted. In September, 1902, one Junipher purchased from Kinney and Dudley’s grantees of her interest in Bay View Tract, property adjoining that previously conveyed to Ross. The deed to Junipher contained a restriction against placing any building nearer than seven feet to the front line of the property conveyed. By mesne conveyances the title to this property was vested in Mary A. Berryman in 1903. She erected a three-story building, one wall of which was on the line between her land and that of defendant. There are many *563 windows for the admission of light and air to this building overlooking the twelve-foot space on defendant’s property. Mary A. Berryman on May 15, 1906, conveyed this last mentioned property to her husband, the plaintiff, who owned it at the time when it is alleged defendant threatened to build on the twelve-foot strip above mentioned in such a manner as to shut off light and air from the windows on that side of the. building adjacent to defendant’s land. In May, 1908, Kinney and Dudley quitclaimed to the Hotel Savoy Company all of the property previously conveyed by them to Boss, such conveyance being “given especially for the purpose of quitclaiming and releasing the covenants and restrictions contained in and provided by” their deed to Boss.

After a trial of the issues the court found that the covenant providing for the maintenance of an open space next to the land afterwards acquired by plaintiff was not inserted in the deed for the benefit of “any particular property whatsoever”; that it was not the intention of any of the parties to the deed to create -an easement for the benefit of the land now owned by plaintiff and that it “was the intention of the parties that said covenant should be for the benefit of the entire tract of land, of which the land in controversy was a part.” The court also found that the title did not pass to defendant subject to the covenants contained in the deed to Boss; that such covenants created a mere personal right in favor of Kinney and Dudley; that this right was surrendered by the quitclaim deed; and that the covenants in the deed to Boss did not run with the land. It was also found that the wall of plaintiff’s building encroached slightly on defendant’s land.

Appellant contends that the deed to Boss and that to Junipher, each containing a restriction against building nearer the front line of the property than seven feet, create reciprocal obligations enforceable in equity, either as covenants that run with the land or as personal covenants with which a court of chancery will compel compliance by persons taking the respective parcels with due notice of the mutual agreements. We cannot accept this view of the law. As was said in Los Angeles Terminal Land Co. v. Southern Pacific R. R. Co., 136 Cal. 42, [68 Pac. 310]: "That there are personal covenants enforceable in equity against the grantee of the covenantor, is conceded; but that proposition is far from being applicable in *564 all cases, for, if it were, it would result that all purely personal covenants in any manner relating to land would have the same effect as those which do run with the land.”

The covenant in the deed to Boss is affirmative. By it the covenantor agrees, in the future, to erect a building at a certain cost and in a certain manner. On the other hand, the deed to Junipher contains a negative covenant, a typical building restriction whereby the covenantor agrees to place no building nearer the front line of his property than seven feet. There is no mention of adjoining property in the deed to Boss. Indeed, there is nothing in that deed to show that Kinney and Dudley, the grantors of Boss, had any interest in any property other than that described in -the said deed. In other words, no dominant tenement is described to which the restriction in the deed to Boss might make his land a servient tenement.

Appellant insists that judgment should have been entered upon the findings, because the court found that the parties intended the covenant in question to be "for the benefit of the entire tract of land of which the land in controversy was a part.” Since the whole includes a part, we are asked to interpret this finding as giving to the plaintiff the right to enforce the covenant made for the benefit of his land which was included in the original Bay View Tract. The finding upon this matter, however, must be read in its entirety. That part of it which declares that Boss and his grantors intended the covenant to operate for the benefit of the whole tract of land immediately follows a finding that the parties did not intend to create an easement for the benefit of the land subsequently acquired by Berryman “or of any land whatever.” Bead as a whole the finding is neither ambiguous nor in opposition to respondent’s theory of the case.

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Bluebook (online)
117 P. 677, 160 Cal. 559, 1911 Cal. LEXIS 547, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/berryman-v-hotel-savoy-company-cal-1911.