Sargent & Co. v. New Haven Steamboat Co.

31 A. 543, 65 Conn. 116, 1894 Conn. LEXIS 70
CourtSupreme Court of Connecticut
DecidedOctober 17, 1894
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 31 A. 543 (Sargent & Co. v. New Haven Steamboat Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sargent & Co. v. New Haven Steamboat Co., 31 A. 543, 65 Conn. 116, 1894 Conn. LEXIS 70 (Colo. 1894).

Opinions

Hamersley, J.

This is an action brought to the Superior Court, to recover possession of a piece of land which was originally a portion of the flats of New Haven harbor, lying between high water and low water-mark, and situated southerly of Water street, where that street is intersected by East street.

Sargent and Companj'-, the plaintiff corporation, alleges title to the demanded premises, with all the water privileges and rights of wharfage belonging thereto, and a wrongful entry and dispossession by the defendant. The answer of the defendant, the Steamboat Company, contains two defenses. The first defense is a general denial. The second defense, in the nature of a plea in bar, alleges the defendant’s possession of so much of the demanded premises as lie easterly of the east line of East street extended; that the right of possession and title to the same were adjudicated to be in the [118]*118defendant, and that the right of possession and title to the remainder of the demanded premises were adjudicated not to be in the plaintiff, by a judgment of the Court of Common Pleas, in an action between the same parties, in which action the parties were at issue upon these questions. The plaintiff denies the adjudication set up in the second defense. By order of the Superior Court the issues were separated, and the issues raised by the second defense were first tried. The court found these issues for the defendant, and that the judgment of the Court of Common Pleas is a bar to any recovery by the plaintiff in this action, and rendered final judgment for the defendant. The plaintiff appeals from that'judgment.

The main question involved in the appeal is: Did the Superior Court err in holding that the right of possession to so much of the demanded premises as lie easterly of the east line of East street extended, is res judicata by reason of the judgment in the former action between the parties. On this question we can entertain no doubt. The defendant claims that the identity of issues in this case and the former case is, under the circumstances disclosed by the record, a question of fact, upon which the finding of the Superior Court is conclusive. Without passing definitely upon this claim, we treat the question as one of law, because the question of the identity of issues has been fully argued as a question of law, and it seems clear to us that, in view of the circumstances of this case and the conclusions reached, we ought to express an opinion upon the error as assigned in the plaintiff’s appeal, that: “The court erred in finding that by the prior adjudication the title to so much of the demanded premises as lay east of the east line of East street was in the defendant.”

The former action was commenced by the New Haven Steamboat Company in 1881, and was nominally an action to recover from Sargent and Company a sum due for wharf-age. It was originally brought before a justice of the peace, and an appeal taken from his judgment on demurrer, to the Court of Common Pleas. In that court the case was referred [119]*119to a committee to find and report the facts. The report of the committee was accepted. By consent of all the parties to the record, in pursuance of § 1114 of the General Statutes, the questions of law arising upon the facts so found by the court were reserved for the advice of the Supreme Court of Errors. The Supreme Court advised judgment for the plaintiff, and in pursuance of that advice the Court of Common Pleas found the issues for the Steamboat Company and rendered judgment in its favor. The record in that action, containing the complaint, the finding of facts by the Court of Common Pleas, and its judgment thereon, was put in evidence in the present case by the Steamboat Company, in support of its second defense, and appears in full in the finding of facts by the Superior Court. The Steamboat Company claims that the real issue tried and decided by the Court of Common Pleas, as conclusively shown by this record, was its asserted right to reclaim the flats and extend its wharf from the land already reclaimed by it to low watermark, along the westerly line of the land so reclaimed, which is the easterly line of East street extended. It is clear, and is admitted, that if such were the real issue decided in favor of the Steamboat Company, then the judgment is a bar to the recovery by Sargent and Company of any portion of the demanded premises lying easterly of that line. The answer is not printed with the record. The legal presumption from that fact alone might be that the case was tried on the general issue. But the formal judgment shows that an answer was in fact filed; the report of the committee, which when accepted by the court became a part of the record, shows that the ownership and not the mere possession of the wharf at the place where the ship liable for the amount of wharfage in question lay, was the main point contested under the pleadings; and the facts found by the court below in this case show that the learned counsel in the former action argued that case as if the question of ownership was involved under the pleadings, and treated that question as the main issue contested, to which all other questions were subordinate.

[120]*120In view of these facts and the admissions of counsel in their arguments before us that the ownership of that portion of the wharf indicated was undoubtedly adjudicated in the former action, and of their failure to question the fact that such ownership was, in law, a matter in issue under the pleadings, we feel bound to assume that the answer missing from the files was appropriately framed for putting in issue such question of ownership; and in view of the interests involved and the gross miscarriage of justice that might otherwise be occasioned, we think the parties rightly considered themselves estopped from claiming that the missing answer did not in fact, as the finding of the court below assumes, legally put in issue in the former action the question of ownership whose adjudication as a fact then in issue they have argued before us in this action. We refer to the subject only for the purpose of excluding any implication that we should consider the fact of ownership an issue presented by the pleadings, as distinguished from a mere evidential fact, did the record before us present the case of a trial upon the complaint and general issue alone. The question is not raised.

The record shows the following facts :—

Prior to bringing the action the Steamboat Company was in possession of a portion of the flats bounded northerly by Water street, easterly by the flats in possession of such company, southerly by the flats upon which it claimed the right to wharf out, and westerly by the flats included between the lines of East street extended; being about eighty-three feet on Water street and on the flats to the south, and two hundred and thirty-one feet on the easterly line of East street extended and on the flats to the east in possession of the company ; and Sargent and Co. was in possession of a portion of the flats bounded north by Water street one hundred and thirty-two feet; and east by the flats lying within the lines of East street extended, one hundred and sixty-five feet. The deeds purporting to convey the title to these two pieces of flats were from the authorities of the town of New Haven; the first to the Steamboat Company’s predecessor [121]*121in title, being in 1807, and to that of Sargent and Company, in 1772. The flats in possession of Sargent and Company as well as those in possession of the Steamboat Company, had been reclaimed by filling in out to the southerly boundary lines.

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Bluebook (online)
31 A. 543, 65 Conn. 116, 1894 Conn. LEXIS 70, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sargent-co-v-new-haven-steamboat-co-conn-1894.