Opinion
No. 35563.
March 13, 1944.
1. EASEMENTS.
Clause in deed giving purchaser right to build a stairway on two-foot strip of land between vendor's building and purchaser's land leading from street to basement of building to be erected by purchaser did not authorize construction of building over two-foot strip or erection of stairway leading to upper floors of new building.
2. INJUNCTION.
Generally, landowner is entitled to an injunction directing removal from his land of a trespassing structure erected thereon by adjoining owner.
3. INJUNCTION.
Injunction requiring removal of trespassing structure will not ordinarily be refused because aggrieved owner suffers little or no damage, because wrongdoer acted in good faith and would be put to disproportionate expense, or because business judgment would require acceptance of pecuniary compensation, since rights in realty cannot ordinarily be taken from owner at a valuation except under power of eminent domain.
4. INJUNCTION.
Injunction requiring removal of trespassing structures will ordinarily be refused only when there is some estoppel or laches on part of plaintiff or refusal to consent to acts necessary to removal or abatement which he demands.
5. INJUNCTION.
The fact that agent employed by purchaser to secure deed from vendor knew of encroachment on vendor's land by building being erected by purchaser's vendee when building was being erected, and made no objection thereto, did not estop vendor from demanding injunction to compel removal of encroachment.
6. INJUNCTION.
Evidence that adjoining landowner passed by building while it was under construction, without more, was insufficient to show that adjoining landowner had such knowledge of encroachment of building on his land while it was being constructed as to estop him from demanding injunction to compel removal of encroachment.
McGEHEE, J., dissenting.
APPEAL from the chancery court of Forrest county, HON. BEN STEVENS, Chancellor.
Hannah, Simrall Foote, of Hattiesburg, for appellant.
The rights of the parties are clearly limited and fixed by the paragraph in the deed, "It is understood and agreed that the grantee is to have a perpetual right to a stairway adjoining the building now known as the Bus Depot, leading from Front Street to the basement of the building which is to be erected."
Appellees undertake to make capital out of the fact that this appellant did not protest their appropriation of this two-foot strip of ground before they had substantially finished the building. This contention is so absurd that it does not merit consideration. The full and complete answer is, however, that the rights of the parties were not only fixed by the deed of conveyance, but what they were to do with reference to a stairway had been discussed and agreed upon between them.
E.J. Currie, of Hattiesburg, for appellees.
The burden of proof was upon the appellant in the trial court and he wholly failed to establish any facts that would entitle him to any relief against the appellees.
The decree of the chancellor has at least as much weight as the verdict of a jury and must be upheld if there is any evidence to support it.
Under the facts of this case the appellant could in no event have been entitled to any relief other than damages, and no effort having been made to prove any damages, the appellant could in no event have recovered.
The appellant inferentially admits that he is not entitled to a decree in this court and thereby inferentially admits that the decree of the trial court should be affirmed.
The admissions of the appellant made in the trial court precluded any recovery by the appellant. Opposing counsel apparently predicate their argument upon the claim that the stairway in question was improperly constructed — that it ran up instead of running down. But their client, the appellant, J.H. Turner, nullified the contention of opposing counsel: "A. I don't object to how the staircase is constructed. The only thing I object to is the wall being moved over the line there. I haven't any objection to the way they built the stairway."
The narrow construction which the appellant now seeks to place upon the written grant, right and easement is not justified by the language used.
The language of the instrument in question, under the facts of this case, must be construed in favor of the appellees.
The language of the instrument supports the position of the appellees.
The construction which the appellees put upon the language of the instrument, as shown by their actions, with the silent assent of the appellant until completion of the structure, conclusively determines the meaning of the language in question.
Sumter Lumber Co. v. Skipper, 183 Miss. 595, 184 So. 296, 298, 835; Cummings et al. v. Midstates Oil Corporation, 193 Miss. 675, 9 So.2d 648; 16 Am. Jur. 536, Sec. 174.
The doctrine of estoppel precluded the appellant from obtaining any relief against the appellees.
The appellant and the appellees own adjoining portions of Lot 9 in the City of Hattiesburg abutting on Front Street. The appellees have erected a brick building on their land which encroaches on that of the appellant for two feet, beginning at Front Street and running back thirty feet, which will hereinafter be referred to as the two by thirty foot strip of land. The appellant sought, but was denied in the court below, an injunction directing the appellees to remove that part of their building covering this two by thirty foot strip of land owned by him. In September, 1940, the appellant owned all of this land. That now owned by the appellees was then vacant, but on that now owned by the appellant there was and still is a building occupied and used by a bus company as a bus station, the ground between it and Front Street being paved with concrete the width of the building. The appellees desiring to purchase that part of the lot now owned by them employed Edmondson to obtain it for them, who procured a deed thereto to himself from the appellant and immediately conveyed it to the appellees. By these deeds the boundary between the land conveyed to Edmondson and by him to the appellees and that remaining to the appellant was a straight line parallel with and two feet from the bus station building and the concrete pavement on the appellant's remaining land. Both of these deeds contain this clause: "It is understood and agreed that the grantee is to have a perpetual right to a stairway adjoining the building now known as the bus depot, leading from Front Street to the basement of the building which is to be erected." Shortly after receiving their deed to this property the appellees erected a three story brick building, including its basement, thereon, one side of which adjoins the appellant's property and covers all of this two by thirty foot strip of land. At the end of this thirty feet where the bus station building is the wall of the appellees' building drops back two feet and from there to the rear of the lot is two feet from the bus station building.
About fifteen feet from Front Street a door was left in the wall of this building leading from the pavement on the appellant's property into the building and to two stairways therein, one leading down to the basement and another up to the floors above.
The appellees claim that they had the right to construct their building over this two foot strip of the appellant's land under the stairway clause in the appellant's deed to Edmondson and his deed to them. In this they are mistaken. The reason given by the appellees in support of this claim is that they had the right to the use of this two by thirty foot strip of land for a stairway and that a wall thereon is necessary to sustain this stairway. If a sustaining wall is necessary for a stairway, as to which we express no opinion, that fact has no application here for the stairway clause in these deeds vests the appellees with the right only to use so much of this strip of land as is necessary for the construction of a stairway from the surface thereof down and into the basement of their building. It clearly does not confer on them the right to construct a stairway on this strip of land leading from its surface to the upper floors of the appellees' building.
Two only of the other contentions of the appellees are of sufficient substance to require a response thereto, they are (1) the appellant is estopped by his and his agent's conduct from objecting to the appellees' building remaining on this two-foot strip of his land; and (2) his right to relief, if any, is only to recover the damages, if any, he has sustained because of this encroachment, and that no such damages were proven. Both of these contentions will be considered together.
The general rule is that a landowner is entitled to an injunction directing the removal of a trespassing structure on his land erected thereon by the owner of adjoining land. "The facts that the aggrieved owner suffers little or no damage from the trespass . . . that the wrongdoer acted in good faith and would be put to disproportionate expense by removal of the trespassing structures . . . and that neighborly conduct as well as business judgment would require acceptance of compensation in money for the land appropriated, . . . are ordinarily no reasons for denying an injunction. Rights in real property cannot ordinarily be taken from the owner at a valuation, except under the power of eminent domain. Only when there is some estoppel or laches on the part of the plaintiff, . . . or a refusal on his part to consent to acts necessary to the removal or abatement which he demands . . . will an injunction ordinarily be refused." Geragosian v. Union Realty Co., 289 Mass. 104, 193 N.E. 726, 728, 96 A.L.R. 1282. If further authority for this is desired, it may be found in 1 Am. Jur. (Adjoining Land Owners) Secs. 17, 18 and 19, and in cases collected in 14 A.L.R. 834, 31 A.L.R. 1302, 76 A.L.R. 304, and 96 A.L.R. 1287.
Counsel for the appellees say that the appellant is estopped from now objecting to this encroachment on his land for the reason that he personally and A.F. Kelly, an agent of his, knew of the encroachment when the building was being erected and made no objection thereto. The evidence discloses, however, that Kelly was in no way an agent of the appellant, the only connection he had herewith being that Edmondson employed him to assist in obtaining the deed to the land from the appellant to Edmondson. Coston, an electrician, said that he wired the appellees' building, beginning so to do when the walls thereof were four or five feet high, and that thereafter he saw the appellant "at the building a dozen or more times." On being asked "What was Mr. Turner doing when you saw him down there," he replied: "Well he was mostly standing around in front — passing, standing around in front, . . . I wouldn't particularly say standing around the building, going to his lunch or passing going to attend to some business or something like that." And in response to the question, "In other words, he frequently passed that building?" he answered, "Yes, sir." All of this was denied by the appellant and without this denial it falls short of proof that the appellant realized from what he saw when he was at or passing this building that it was being constructed so as to encroach on his land. This being true, no estoppel appears therefrom even if knowledge by the appellant of the encroachment without objection by him thereto would estop him from now complaining thereat, in the light of the fact that the appellees must be charged with knowing that their deed gave them no right to encroach on the appellant's land, as to which it is not necessary for us to express an opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
DISSENTING OPINION.
I concur in the controlling opinion in holding that the appellees did not have the right under the "stairway clause" in the appellant's deed to Edmondson, and in the latter's deed to them, to construct their building so that one wall thereof encroached on the two-foot strip of land in controversy. But I am of the opinion that there was testimony which the chancellor had the right to believe, to the effect that the owner of the two-foot strip of land visited the premises while the wall of the appellees' building was in the course of construction, and then made no objection to the location of the wall until after it was completed, at great cost to the appellees.
The chancellor, on hearing the testimony, and doubtless being familiar with the premises in question, since he resides in the city of Hattiesburg where the property is situated, was entitled to take into consideration the location of the new wall with reference to the wall of the bus station, and to find as a fact that if the owner of the two-foot strip of land in controversy did, in fact, visit the premises from time to time after the new wall had reached a height of four or five feet, and until this three-story building had been completed, he would necessarily have noticed that the wall was being constructed so as to encroach to that extent on his land, and would not now be entitled to an injunction requiring the appellees to remove the wall at great expense to themselves, estimated to be approximately $3,000, far in excess of the value of the two-foot strip of land, without regard to what other relief he may be entitled to under the circumstances.
Whether or not the witness, Coston, an electrician, referred to in the controlling opinion, was telling the truth in testifying as he did, which statements were denied by the appellant, was an issue of fact for decision by the trial judge, and I am unable to say that he was manifestly wrong in adopting the testimony of such witness as true, since it is not unreasonable on its face, and so far as the record discloses, he had no interest in the litigation.
If the testimony of Coston was true it would seem to follow that the owner of the two-foot strip of land was put on notice that the appellees were evidently causing the wall to be built thereon under claim of right then being asserted under their deed. The appellant, having made no objection thereto while this great expense was being incurred, should be held to be estopped from obtaining injunctive relief, whereby the appellees are to be compelled to remove this wall and reconstruct the same at a distance of two feet away, necessitating the remodeling of one side of their entire building.