Mott v. . Palmer

1 N.Y. 564

• Court: New York Court of Appeals
• Decided: December 5, 1848
• Status: Published

Opinions

[EDITORS' NOTE: THIS PAGE CONTAINS HEADNOTES. HEADNOTES ARE NOT AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT OF THE COURT, THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED.] In December, 1841, Mott conveyed to Palmer a farm of land in Columbia county, by a deed containing the following covenant:

"And the said Philander Mott doth hereby covenant and agree that at the delivery hereof he is the lawful owner of the premises above granted, and seized of a good and indefeasible estate of inheritance therein clear of all incumbrance."

This action was brought by Palmer, the grantee, on the covenant in the deed, to recover the value of a rail fence which stood on the land when the deed was executed, but which did not belong to Mott the grantor. The facts were, that the fence was erected on Mott's land in 1840 by one Brown, (who owned the adjoining land,) under an agreement between him and Mott, by which Brown was to fence in, temporarily, a part of Mott's land with his own, and to cut and take away the grass growing on Mott's land; with leave to take away the fence whenever he liked. After Mott conveyed to Palmer the land on which the fence stood, Palmer removed the fence and converted it to his own use. Brown thereupon sued him before a justice for the fence and recovered, Mott being a witness on that trial against Palmer. Although the evidence to prove these facts was at first offered by Palmer on the trial of this cause in the court below and rejected by the court, it was afterwards given by the defendant Mott.

The question now is whether in this action brought by Palmer the grantee against Mott his grantor, on the covenant of ownership and seisin in the deed, Palmer is entitled to recover the value of the fence. A grantor who executes a conveyance of land undertakes to convey every thing described in his deed; and by a covenant of seisin he assumes to be the owner of all he undertakes to convey. The deed in question purported to "grant and convey all that certain lot or farm of land situate in the town of Chatham, county of Columbia, bounded c. with the appurtenances," c. The word land, when used in a deed, includes not only the naked earth, but every thing within it, and the buildings, trees, fixtures and fences upon it. (Goodrich v.Jones, 2 Hill, 143; Walker v. Sherman, 20 Wend. 639, 640, 646; Green v. Armstrong, 1 Denio, 554; Com. Dig.Grant, E.; Co. Litt. 4 a; 2 Roll. 265.) A deed passes all the incidents to the land as well as the land itself, and as well when they are not expressed as when they are. Fixtures belonging to the owner of the land, being part of the land, cannot be reserved by parol when the land is conveyed; the deed conveys them to the grantee unless the reservation be in writing. (Noble v. Bosworth, 19 Pick. 314.) If the fence had belonged to Mott, it would have passed by his deed; not by force of the word appurtenances contained in the deed, but without that word, and as part of the land. Trees, buildings, fixtures, and fences on a farm, are corporeal in their nature, and the subjects of seisin, like the land itself of which they are regarded in the law as a part. Fences are perishable by the effect of time, and so are trees and houses; but indestructibility is not one of the essential attributes of real estate. Fences are not only indispensable to the enjoyment of real estate, but they are, in their nature, real estate, to the same extent that houses and other structures on the land are so. A rail, before it is used in the construction of a fence, is personal property, and so is a loose timber before it is used in the construction of a house. When either is applied to its appropriate use in building a fence or a house, its legal nature is changed. It becomes real estate, and is governed by the law which regulates land, descending to the heir as part of the inheritance, and passing by a deed as part of the freehold. A fence may be easily detached from the earth, but not more easily than the stones which lie on its surface, and both are part of the land, and therefore it is that a building or fence belonging to the owner of the land will pass by his deed of the land without being expressed or designated as part of the thing granted.

But the earth within specified boundary lines may be owned by one man, and the buildings, trees and fences standing on it by another. A man may have an inheritance in an upper chamber, although the title to the lower buildings and soil be in another. (Shep. Touch. 206; 1 Inst. 48, b.) And it is a corporeal inheritance. (10 Vin. 202.) Buildings and fixtures erected by a tenant for the purposes of trade belong to him, and are removable without the consent of his landlord. (Holmes v. Tremper, 20John. 30; Miller v. Plumb, 6 Cowen, 665; Doty v.Gorham, 5 Pick. 489.) Herlakenden's case, (4 Co. R. 63,) affords an instance in which one man owned the land and another the growing trees upon it. In Rogers v. Woodbury, (15 Pick. 156,) Putnam, J., in speaking of a house which a man had erected on land which did not belong to him, said "it might or it might not be parcel of the realty. If the owner of the land owned the buildings, it would be so. If he did not, and the owner of the building had no interest in the land, the building would be personal property." Smith v. Benson, (1 Hill, 176,) was the case of a dwelling house and grocery belonging to one man, although standing on the land of another; and in Russell. v.Richards, (1 Fairf. 431,) the owner of land on which another man had erected a saw mill by his consent, executed a deed for the land and the mill, but it was held that the conveyance passed no title to the mill, because it was the property of him who built it. The conclusion derived from these cases against the plaintiff's right of recovery on the covenant is, that the defendant's deed purports to be a grant of real estate only, and the fence in question being personal property was not a part of the premises granted, and therefore not within the scope of the covenant which relates to the realty only.

If this be a sound conclusion, a grantor could not be made liable on the covenants in his deed, although he had previously and privately sold, with a view to removal, all the houses, buildings, mills, fences, and growing timber on the land conveyed. Indeed, if this doctrine prevails, the gravel, clay, stone and loam, might also be converted into personal property by such a sale, and carried off the land; without violating the grantor's covenant. Let us test the correctness of this conclusion in a few words. It is true the fence in one sense was not a part of the thing granted. It did not pass by the deed. In the same sense, if some stranger had been the owner of one half the farm, that half would not have been part of the thing granted, because it would not have passed by the deed. But the fence was within the description of the thing granted as clearly as the land itself; and being within the description, it was a part of that which the deed purported to convey, and of which the grantor covenanted that he was the owner. If it be yet doubted whether the fence (being in fact the personal property of Brown) was within the description of what the grantor professed to convey, that doubt can be solved in a moment, by reflecting that it would undeniably have passed by the deed if the grantor had been the owner of it; although it could not have so passed if it had not been within the description.

It all comes to this: The grantor undertook to convey it as part of the realty by a deed which would have been effectual for that purpose if he had been the owner of it, as by the deed he professed to be, but was not. It is therefore a case in which the covenant of seisin affords a remedy; and although the amount in controversy is trifling, the right is clear; and it seems to be perfectly just that the grantor should pay for the fence, because there is nothing in the case to show that Palmer, when he accepted the deed, was informed by Mott or otherwise knew that it belonged to Brown.

The judgment of the supreme court must therefore be affirmed.