Earl v. Dutour

LENNON, J.

This appeal is from a decree quieting plaintiff’s title to a strip of land fifteen feet wide adjacent to the center line of lot 17 of the Hilliard Tract in the county of Los Angeles.

Plaintiff and defendant own, respectively, the easterly and westerly halves of lot 17, and the sole question in dispute is whether the center line of the lot forms the eastern or western boundary of the strip of land in suit. The answer to this question depends upon the construction to be placed upon the word “lot” in the deed by which was conveyed to defendants the “westerly one-hálf of lot seventeen (17) of the Hilliard Tract, as per amended map recorded in book 43, page 64, miscellaneous records of said county.”

Inasmuch as the map referred to clearly indicates that the western boundary of lot 17 is the center line of an avenue sixty feet in width, it was contended on behalf of plaintiff and held by the trial court that the thirty-foot strip covered by the street was part of the “lot” within the meaning of

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the deed and that, therefore, the eastern boundary of defendants’ land was a line halfway between the center line of the avenue and the eastern boundary of lot 17.

With this conclusion we are unable to agree.

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However clearly it may appear that the owner of a lot holds title to the center of an adjoining street, subject to the public easement, and that the boundary of the lot is technically, therefore, the center of the street, in view of the fact that the owner of such lot or land has no right to the possession or occupancy of any portion of such public street, we are of the opinion that the word “lot,” as generally and customarily used, does not include such portion of the street.

Wegge

v.

Madler,

129 Wis. 412, [116 Am. St. Rep. 953, 109 N. W. 223].) As .stated by the supreme court of Indiana, “Lot and street are two separate and distinct terms, and have separate and distinct meanings.