Syers v. Dodd

SPENCE, J.

Defendant appeals from a judgment in favor of plaintiff enjoining defendant from entering upon or using certain real property.

Both parties are owners of lots in a tract known as Laughlin Park and the controversy arises out of defendant’s claim to the right to use a 25-foot roadway running along the southerly edge of plaintiff’s lot for the purpose of gaining access to defendant’s property. The tract is bounded by Los

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Feliz Avenue on the north and Franklin Avenue on the south. The map of the tract recorded by the tract owners, through whom both plaintiff and defendant deraign title, showed a subdivision into lots but showed no streets within the tract. Upon this map which we will call the recorded map, appeared 19 irregular inside lots varying in area up to three acres which were not contiguous to any road or street. The tract owners deeded the lots to the purchasers by reference to this map. An unrecorded map was used by the tract owners for publicity and sales purposes. This unrecorded map showed various roads winding irregularly through the tract and each lot within the tract was shown abutting on one or more of these roads. Practically all of these roads, including the one in controversy, were of an uniform width of 25 feet, but they were not designated on the unrecorded map by either name or number. The road here in controversy was shown on the unrecorded map as a blind road or “spur”, as plaintiff termed it, running along the southerly edge of plaintiff’s property and connecting with the rear of the lots belonging to defendant and the lots belonging to others. The unrecorded map was printed and circulated at the time the subdivision was put on the market and was thereafter used by the salesmen in making their sales to the purchasers. The purchasers were told by the salesmen that the strips designated on the map were laid out for road purposes for the common use of the property owners. In the deeds through which defendant claims, no mention was made of the right to an easement over the road in question. When plaintiff purchased in 1922, his deed purported to cover a portion of the strip of land designated on the map as a road. This deed did mention that the property was subject to an easement for private driveway purposes in favor of another owner but made no mention of any easement in favor of defendant. At the time plaintiff made the purchase the road had been used by defendant and others for many years. Plaintiff testified that he received one of the unrecorded maps at the time he purchased the property and at that time “the streets Avere laid out just as that map shows them”. The trial court sustained plaintiff’s contention that under the deed from the tract owners he was entitled to exclude defendant from the use of the portion of the roadway running across his property. Findings were made to the effect that defend