Kane v. New York Elevated Railroad

26 N.E. 278, 125 N.Y. 164, 3 Silv. Ct. App. 317, 1891 N.Y. LEXIS 1470
CourtNew York Court of Appeals
DecidedJanuary 13, 1891
StatusPublished
Cited by46 cases

This text of 26 N.E. 278 (Kane v. New York Elevated Railroad) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kane v. New York Elevated Railroad, 26 N.E. 278, 125 N.Y. 164, 3 Silv. Ct. App. 317, 1891 N.Y. LEXIS 1470 (N.Y. 1891).

Opinion

Andrews, J.

The plaintiff is the owner of a lot on the easterly side of Pearl street in the city of Bew York, which, on the 1st day of December, 1768, was granted by the Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty of the city to the plaintiff’s predecessor in title, by a description which bounded the westerly side of the lot on Queen (now Pearl) street. When the grant was made, the tidal waters of the East river washed the easterly side of the street, udiicli was coincident with the water line, and the lot granted was then under w'ater. It was subsequently filled in and reclaimed, and has been built upon, and Pearl street has become one of the important business streets of the city of Bew York. The road of the defendant has been con•structed in the street, in front of plaintiff’s lot, and this action is brought for damages thereto, caused by its construction and operation.

Few questions have come before the courts in this generation of greater practical importance or involving larger pecuniary interests than those growing out of the construction of railways in city streets. Whether such streets may, under legislative and municipal authority, be occupied by railroad tracks, to the inconvenience of abutting owners, without making compensation, and what limitation, if any, there is to the legislative power over streets which cannot be transgressed without violating the legal and constitutional rights of lot owners are-questions which have excited the gravest debate and have been the subject of the most careful judicial consideration. Under the decisions made there seems to be no longer any doubt in this state that streets in a city laid out and opened uuder charter provisions may, under legislative and municipal author[176]*176ity, be used for any public use consistent with their preservation as public streets, and this, although the use may be new, and may seem to impose an additional burden, and may subject lot - owners to injury. The mere disturbance of their rights of light, air and access, by the imposition of a new street use, must be borne and gives no right of action. It is also the law of this state that the use of a city street for an ordinary horse or steam railway, unless it practically closes the street, is a street use which may be permitted, and that abutting owners, whose lots are bounded" by the side of the street, have no legal redress in the absence of negligence in the construction or operation of the railroad, although it interferes with the enjoyment of their premises or seriously impairs their value. (Fobes v. R., W. & O. R. R. Co., 121 N. Y. 505.)

In the Story case (90 N. Y. 122), three principal questions were considered, (1) whether the appropriation of Front street for the use of the elevated railroad, was consistent with the use of the street as an open public street; (2) whether Story, an abutting owner on the street, the fee of which was (as was assumed) in the city, had any property rights in the nature of easements of light, air and access, in and from the street, for the benefit of his adjacent property, which were invaded by the construction of the road; (3) whether such rights, if they existed, were property within the constitutional provision prohibiting the taking of private property for public use without due compensation. The decision of the court on the first point, while recognizing the rule that the legislature may authorize the construction and operation of an ordinary surface railroad' in a city street, placed its decision against the defendant on the character of thestructure, and held that it was destructive of the street uses for which streets are established. Upon the second point it was held that the plaintiff had easements in the street of light, air and access, appurtenant to his lot, which were affected by the structure of the defendant, impairing the value of his lot. The court, in tracing the origin of his property rights in the -nature of easements in the street, placed [177]*177stress upon two facts, viz.: The original grant from the city,, then the owner both of the land granted and of that which, subsequently became Front street, describing the lot granted by reference to a survey and map .on which Front street was-delineated, and second, the express covenant of the city, contained in the grant, that the streets referred to therein, should forever thereafter continue to be public streets. It-was decided in respect to the third point that incorporeal, rights annexed to property were property within the protection of the Constitution, and could not be taken or impaired, without compensation.

In the Lahr case (104 N. Y. 268), the street upon which, the plaintiff’s lot was situated had been opened under the-statute of 1813.' The decision in the Story case left open but one point for discussion, viz.: Whether lot owners upon, streets opened under that statute had similar easements of light, air and access as those which Story had, although the-plaintiff and those under whom he claimed did not derive their title from the city, and had no express covenant such as-existed in the case of Story. The court decided that the plaintiff, notwithstanding this difference in the circumstances in the two cases, had easements of the same character as Story. The -court regarded the statute of 1813, which permitted the. taking by the city of lands for streets, and the assessing of the cost of improvement upon the property benefited, taken in connection with the trust declared therein, as equivalent to a contract or covenant by the city with the adjacent lot owners-that the street opened under the statute should forever remain open and public streets, and the consequence was held to-follow that they could not be appropriated to other than street uses, to the injury of abutting owners, except upon the condition of making compensation.

The present case presents still another phase of the general question. Pearl street, on which the plaintiff’s lot is situated, was a street prior to 1664, and was opened under the Dutch regime during the. Dutch occupation of Manhattan island. It passed with all the other territory occupied by the Dutch, [178]*178under the control of the crown of Great Britain, upon the capitulation in 1664. There is no evidence in the case of the circumstances attending the opening of Pearl street, or whether the soil forming the bed of the' street was, when it was laid •out, private or public property. The contention of the defendant upon this state of facts in brief is, that under the civil law, which was the law of Holland, the sovereign was vested with the absolute title to the soil of all streets and highways within his dominions, and that no jwivate rights or easements existed therein, and that an owner of land adjacent to a street acquired no rights by reason of adjacency, or from the fact that he had built upon the street in reliance upon its continued existence, to have it kept.open as. a street or way, but that it was competent for the sovereign to close the street, or to convert it to any different public use at any time without making any compensation to owners of adjacent lands, although by so doing the value of the property might be diminished or even substantially destroyed.

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Bluebook (online)
26 N.E. 278, 125 N.Y. 164, 3 Silv. Ct. App. 317, 1891 N.Y. LEXIS 1470, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kane-v-new-york-elevated-railroad-ny-1891.