Thomas v. Ross

376 A.2d 1368, 119 R.I. 231, 1977 R.I. LEXIS 1900
CourtSupreme Court of Rhode Island
DecidedAugust 19, 1977
Docket76-32-Appeal
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 376 A.2d 1368 (Thomas v. Ross) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Rhode Island primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Thomas v. Ross, 376 A.2d 1368, 119 R.I. 231, 1977 R.I. LEXIS 1900 (R.I. 1977).

Opinion

*232 Paolino, J.

This is a civil action brought in Superior

Court to enforce an easement to pass over the defendants’ property in Little Compton. The plaintiffs, Antone S. and Mary S. Thomas, sought damages and injunctive relief against James L. and Kathleen F. Ross, who had erected obstructions at each end of the claimed easement. The defendants denied the plaintiffs’ claim of an easement and filed a counterclaim and third-party complaint against their grantors, Mary S. Thomas and two others, seeking declartory and injunctive relief. After a trial without a jury, judgment was entered denying and dismissing the plaintiffs’ complaint and granting the relief sought by the defendants. From this judgment the plaintiffs and the third-party defendants now appeal.

In order to explain more easily the several conveyances which led to the present controversy we attach as Appendix *233 A a diagram of the area showing the various lots and lettering them roughly as they were lettered in the survey maps which were admitted as evidence. The disputed easement is located between 3 and 4 on that diagram and is shown by slanted lines. As indicated, there is a shoreline on the southeast side of the tract and a public road, Grange Avenue, on the northwest.

The parcels of land involved in this case were originally part of a larger tract belonging to a Manuel DeSilveira. He purchased the property from a Brownell and a Howard in separate transactions early in this century. The deeds in those early conveyances contained provisions granting or reserving various rights-of-way for assorted purposes, but none of these old rights-of-way seem to have survived to the present except for one reserved for the members of a certain family to pass to their ancestral cemetery, lot F. Some of these rights-of-way have been resurrected in recent years as the DeSilveira tract has been conveyed out to different grantees.

The first conveyance from the large tract came in 1956 when John C. and Ruth C. Howland purchased lot L. A provision in their deed made the lot subject to the right-of-way bounding it, evidently one of the old rights-of-way referred to above. This right-of-way is marked on the appendix map from 1 to 2.

In that same year plaintiff Mary Thomas purchased lot I, but that parcel was evidently not part of the DeSilveira tract.

In 1958 Manuel DeSilveira conveyed his entire tract minus lot L to two trustees, Philip B. Wilbur and Philip W. Almy, Jr., who are third-party defendants here. These trustees have since conveyed most or all of the lots to different buyers some of whom have reconveyed their lots to other buyers. We will, however, only refer to those con *234 veyances which are relevant to determining whether plaintiffs have rights over the claimed easement.

In 1959 the trustees conveyed the lot marked Ross §1 to defendants. That deed referred to a plan of the area drawn up by a Leo W. Grenier and said this plan was to be filed with the town clerk, as it eventually was. It was subsequently revised, but the revisions are not relevant to this case. The deed to Ross §1 is reproduced as appendix R with the relevant paragraphs lettered “a” to “d”. It granted to defendants the following easements: (1) in paragraph “b,” a 20-foot-wide right-of-way, as shown on the Grenier plan, going north and west to Grange Avenue, marked 5 to 8 on the appendix map; (2) a way for defendants to pass to the shore, grantors reserving the right to set the exact route at their absolute discretion (paragraph “c”); and (3) the right to pass over any established rights-of-way to which the grantors’ lands were subject insofar as the grantors had the right to grant (paragraph “d”).

Of greatest significance for the present case is this language of paragraph “a” which specifically stated that the Grenier plan was in error where it showed an easement along the eastern boundary of Ross §1, from 3 to 4 on the appendix map:

“Although said plan shows a right of way located and bounding easterly on the granted premises, it is not the intention of the grantors to create by this instrument or recording of said plan any such right of way. The right of way is shown thereon in error, and is to be excepted from said recorded plan.”

Thus, at the time defendants bought Ross §1 the contested easement did not exist.

On June 27, 1961, the trustees, as required by the terms of their trust indenture, conveyed to plaintiff Mary Thomas an undivided one-half interest in the property they still held at that time, that is, the whole of the DeSilveira tract except *235 for lots C, D, L, M and Ross #1, which had been conveyed previously. On that same day, lots C, D and Ross §1 were conveyed back to the trustees, then reconveyed to the same grantees in order to correct errors of description in the first deeds. These corrective deeds contained the same language quoted above granting right-of-way but deleting the easement from 3 to 4 shown on the Grenier plan.

On September 1, 1961, three transactions were carried out and the documents recorded in the following order:

(1) The trustees and Mary Thomas exercised the right they had reserved in conveying Ross #1 to defendants and determined defendants’ right-of-way to the shore. The route was described as a 20-foot right-of-way, the western line of which was defined as follows:

“Beginning at the northeasterly corner of said Ross land conveyed by said deed dated June 27, 1961, thence southerly bounding westerly on said Ross land 137.49 feet, more or less, thence continuing, as shown on the plan entitled ‘Certain Land in Little Compton, Rhode Island, Scale 1" indicates inches equals 100' 26 Sept. 1956, Drawing Number S-l-83’ recorded in the records of Land Evidence of said Little Compton in Book 2, page 65, southerly 112 feet, more or less, bounding westerly on land now or formerly of Mary S. Thomas, and then further southerly 413 feet, more or less, bounding westerly on land now or formerly of Howland; thence easterly and southerly along existing right of way.”

(The 1956 plan referred to was of the DeSilveira tract. It showed a right-of-way as indicated on Appendix A from 1 to 3.) The way granted thus goes from 1 to approximately 4 on the appendix map. It includes parts of old rights-of-way and also includes most of the easement being claimed by plaintiffs in this action. This document represents the first rights granted to any of the parties to pass along 3 to 4.

*236 (2) The trustees and Mary Thomas conveyed lots B, E and G to Johns and Adeline Congdon. That deed is reproduced as Appendix C with certain relevant paragraphs lettered “a” through “e.” It reserved in paragraph “b” and created in “c” rights of way to lot F, the cemetery, for use by the family whose members rested there. In paragraph “a” the deed referred to a second plan drawn up by Leo Grenier for Johns Congdon which, like the earlier Grenier plan, was recorded and showed an easement to Grange Avenue, as indicated from 3 to 8 on Appendix A.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
376 A.2d 1368, 119 R.I. 231, 1977 R.I. LEXIS 1900, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/thomas-v-ross-ri-1977.