Livingston v. Manhattan Railway Co.

4 A.D. 165, 38 N.Y.S. 751, 74 N.Y. St. Rep. 87

This text of 4 A.D. 165 (Livingston v. Manhattan Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Livingston v. Manhattan Railway Co., 4 A.D. 165, 38 N.Y.S. 751, 74 N.Y. St. Rep. 87 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1896).

Opinion

Patterson, J.:

The judgment appealed from in this case directs that the defendants be perpetually en joined from maintaining and operating an elevated railroad on South Fifth avenue,, in the city of New York, in front of and opposite to premises known as Nos. 47 and 49 Grand street and 220 South Fifth avenue, unless within a specified time the defendants shall pay the sum of $7,500 for damages to the fee value of the property caused by the taking of certain easements appurtenant to such property, and contains the other ordinary provisions of decrees in cases of this character. It also provides for a money recovery for past damages in amounts aggregating something over $1,000. The main ground upon which this decree is attacked by the appellants is that the court below has attached easements to much of the land of the- plaintiffs, to which land, as matter of fact, no easements taken by the railway company were appurtenant.

. The premises in suit, although descriptively known as Nos. 47 and 49 Grand street and 220 South Fifth avenue, constitute a plot of ground at the southwest corner of Grand street and South Fifth avenue with a frontage of thirty-four feet and six inches on Grand street and about eighty-four feet on South Fifth avenue. Of this eighty-four feet on South Fifth avenue, the southerly thirty-four feet constitute the frontage of No. 220 South Fifth avenue, that lot being thirty-five feet deep. The premises on Grand street are divided into two lots of equal size, No. 47, being to- the west, and No. 49, the corner loti Each of the three lots has a separate builds ing upon it of rather an inferior character. No. 47 Grand street is distinct from 49 Grand street, and as a separate property the building on it undoubtedly derive^ no benefit or easements of light, air or [167]*167access from any part of the South Fifth avenue frontage of the plaintiffs’ land, as the two structures on Grand street now exist.

Although, the decree is drawn in the manner above stated, yet it is quite clear from the findings and conclusions of the court below that it was not intended to adjudge as matter of fact that the premises No. 47 Grand street were so affected by the presence and operation of the elevated road as to entitle the plaintiffs either to an injunction or past damages as to that No. 47, either separately or as forming part of one consolidated plot of property. The sixty-fourth finding of fact distinctly states that11 the past damages hereinbefore found do not include any damages with respect to the braiding No. 47 Grand street; ” and the twentieth conclusion of law is that the plaintiffs are not entitled to any recovery with respect to the premises known as No. 47 Grand street. In the face of that finding of fact and that conclusion of law it cannot be inferred that in the fixing of the amount of depreciation in fee value and the ascertainment of damage to rental value the learned court intended to make any award distinctly for No. 47 Grand street. The twenty-seventh and the twenty-ninth conclusions of law specifically exclude No. 47 Grand street, and as those are the clauses of the findings which directed what the judgment should be, it is obvious that the whole scope of the decision was confined to the easterly frontage of 220 South Fifth avenue and 49 Grand street, and that in the judgment itself the reference to 47 Grand street is merely a misdescription of what was contemplated by the findings of fact and the conclusions of law, or, rather, the insertion in the decree of the description of the whole premises of the plaintiffs in block and not separated. This mere casual error in the description of the premises in the decree is one which does not call for a reversal of the judgment, but only for an amendment of the decree by making it conform to the findings of fact and conclusions of law by striking out the words “ 47 Grand street ” where they occur therein.

There remains, however, another question respecting the condition of the South Fifth avenue frontage of the premises 49 Grand street. The position is taken by the defendants that for a depth of fifty feet on South Fifth avenue southerly from the corner of Grand street there is interposed between the easterly line of the plaintiff’s premises and the street line a strip three inches in width; that the [168]*168title to this strip of fifty feet by three inches is not in the plaintiffs and that the easements of light, air and access on South Fifth avenue are not appurtenant to the plaintiffs’ land, but to this strip of three inches in width. The plaintiffs deny the existence of any such strip at all and claim title to and jmssession of all the land up to the easterly street line of South Fifth avenue, and have introduced evidence to show title as claimed. In the first and third findings of fact, the court has found the title and easements to be in the plaintiffs and that Maturin Livingston, the plaintiffs’ testator and devisor, acquired the title to the Grand street lots in March, 1876, and to 220 South Fifth avenue on the 15tli day of April, 1885.

The alleged facts connected with the defendants’ claim, seem to be as follows: Prior to 1870, South Fifth avenue was known as Laurens street. That street was widened on the westerly side, under proceedings taken for that purpose in the year 1868. At the southwest corner of Laurens and Grand streets was situated a lot known as No. 51 Grand street, having a depth of about fifty-eight feet on Laurens street. No. 51 Grand street was described in the proceedings as having a frontage of twenty-five feet, “ more or less.” The commissioners for widening Laurens street took just twenty-five feet of the.lot No. 51 Grand street, and it was ascertained, according to the contention of the defendants, that the lot was twenty-five feet and three inches wide and that that left the strip of three inches on the westerly side of the improvement, .being the strip of three inches referred to in this action. The question is raised as to whom these three inches belong. On the other hand, the plaintiffs have shown a clear title to and possession of all of the Grand street frontage, including Nos. 47 and 49, to the westerly street line of Laurens street. That title is deduced originally from a warranty deed made by George Lovett in the year 1838. The premises conveyed by that deed were 47 and 49 Grand street, and they are referred to as being twenty-five feet westerly from the souths .westerly corner of Grand street and Laurens street; and the easterly line is drawn parallel with Laurens street so that under this deed from Lovett, the easterly line of 49 Grand street was, according to the description of the deed referred to, exactly twenty-five feet from ■ the westerly line of Laurens street and passed the three inches to Lovett’s grantee, because only twenty-five feet were taken for the [169]*169improvement from lot No. 51 Grand street. When Maturin Livingston became the owner of the premises in 1876, lots 47 and 49 Grand street were conveyed by one deed and as an entire piece of property. They are described as beginning at the corner formed by the intersection of the southerly line of Grand street and the westerly line of South Fifth avenue.

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Related

Keene v. Metropolitan Elevated Railway Co.
29 N.Y.S. 971 (New York Supreme Court, 1894)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
4 A.D. 165, 38 N.Y.S. 751, 74 N.Y. St. Rep. 87, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/livingston-v-manhattan-railway-co-nyappdiv-1896.