Cake v. Sunbury Borough

Citations

• 43 Pa. Super. 95
• 1910 Pa. Super. LEXIS 20

Syllabus

<p>Deeds — Descriptions—Boundaries—Reference to plot — River as boundary.</p> <p>1. Where reference is made in deeds for the sale of lots to a plot on which they are shown with numbers, streets, alleys and water courses, the plan so referred to becomes a material part of the conveyance, and is to have the same effect as if it were copied into the deed.</p> <p>2. Ordinarily the construction of a deed or other document is for the court, but where boundaries are to be ascertained, and where the intention of the parties is to be discovered in the light of conditions and circumstances extraneous to the documents the case is for the jury .</p> <p>3. Where a deed calls for a street as one of the boundaries, and refers to a plot, and the plot does not show the street, but a river as the boundary, and evidence as to the local conditions and circumstances tend to show that the river and not the street was intended as the boundary, the question as to what was the boundary intended is for the jury and not for the court.</p> <p>4. Where a road is laid out or dedicated to a navigable stream, the road runs to the water even though it has not been worked or used further than the top of the bank. The ground between high and low-water mark is as much subject to appropriation to a road as any other land; and the same rule applies to a road terminating at a navigable river which is applicable in the case of one road connecting with another the two thereby becoming a continuous public highway.</p> <p>5. Where a plan of lots indicates the west boundary of the lots as a river, and subsequent deeds by the owner call for a street as the west boundary, and it appears that the high-water line of the river overlapped the street, it may be inferred that the owner did not claim to reserve anything between the street and low-water mark. In such a case it will be presumed that the owner intended to secure to the purchasers of the lots and to the public access to the water; and this presumption is