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Blauvelt v. Passaic Water Co.

72 A. 1091, 75 N.J. Eq. 351, 5 Buchanan 351, 1909 N.J. Ch. LEXIS 77
CourtNew Jersey Court of Chancery
DecidedApril 13, 1909
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 72 A. 1091 (Blauvelt v. Passaic Water Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Jersey Court of Chancery primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Blauvelt v. Passaic Water Co., 72 A. 1091, 75 N.J. Eq. 351, 5 Buchanan 351, 1909 N.J. Ch. LEXIS 77 (N.J. Ct. App. 1909).

Opinion

Garrison, V. C.

The sole question in this case, as I conceive it, is to ascertain and give effect to the intention of the parties as expressed in the [353]*353deed from the Passaic Water Company to William H. Blauvelt. To ascertain this intention it is first necessary to understand the situation at the time that the deed was made. At that time, fronting on a street then called Water street, and which previously had been called Totowa avenue and Totowa road, Blauvelt had land upon one side and directly opposite, the Passaic Water Company had land upon the other.

At the time of the drawing of the deed a plan had been projected of changing the location of the street, the result of which change would be to leave a little triangle of land upon the side owned by the Passaic Water Company between the line of the new street and the line of the old street, and the effect of the change upon the title of the parties would be to leave Blauvelt, whose homestead was erected upon his land and ran down to the edge of the street, with title, of course, to the centre of the vacated street; then would come a piece of the vacated street, the title to which would revert to the water company, and then would come this little triangle between the north line of the new street and what had been the south line of the old street. Of course, there would not be any break in the continuity of the ownership of the Passaic Water Company from the centré line of the old street out to the new street, because, by the vacation of the old street, the land, from its centre line to the line of the Passaic Water Company’s other land, would revert to the water company, and it would therefore own from the centre line of the old street out to the north line of the new street. But at the time that the deed was drawn the old street was still in use and the improvement was only contemplated, and the situation which would be produced by the new street would be to leave the Passaic Water Company a peculiarity shaped piece of land intervening between the homestead and land of Blauvelt and the new street.

The draughtsman of the deed (which is badly drawn to express clearly the intention of the parties) described by metes and bounds the little triangle of land which the Passaic Water Company owned on the north side of the new street as it would be when actually laid out, and then included as part of what was [354]*354granted, the use of the land between such triangle and the other land of Blauvelt.

It will greatly aid in understanding the situation to here insert, as I do, two diagrams showing, respectively—first, the situation before the change in the street lines and before the conveyance in 1873 by the water company to Blauvelt, and second, the situation after the change from the old street to the new, showing the locus vn\quo.

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Bluebook (online)
72 A. 1091, 75 N.J. Eq. 351, 5 Buchanan 351, 1909 N.J. Ch. LEXIS 77, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/blauvelt-v-passaic-water-co-njch-1909.