Dennis v. Northern Pacific Railway Co.

Citations

• 20 Wash. 320
• 55 P. 210
• 1898 Wash. LEXIS 528

Syllabus

<p>REFORMATION OF DEED—MISTAKE-SUBSEQUENT PURCHASER—NOTICE -LACHES.</p> <p>Where a contract for the sale of land agreed upon provided for the reservation hy the grantor of a right of way, hut through a mistake of the grantor’s agent in selecting the proper blank form of deed, a conveyance of the land was made free of such reservation, the deed may he corrected in equity on the ground of mutual mistake.</p> <p>Where a railroad company makes a deed of premises owned by it under a congressional land grant, giving it a right of way 400 feet wide, a portion of which it was using in the operation of its road, hut by mutual mistake the deed omitted the reservation, though agreed to by the grantee, a subsequent grantee cannot he regarded as an innocent purchaser, in view of such public statute, and when he resided in the vicinity for nearly two years and must have had actual notice that the railroad was in possession of the right of way and operating its trains over it, and when it was a matter of general notoriety that the railroad’s right of way was not confined to the width of its roadbed, but that its ownership comprised a strip 400 feet wide.</p> <p>The fact that a grantor does not begin an action against a subsequent grantee immediately upon discovery of a mistake in the deed to the prior grantee does not amount to laches, where such subsequent grantee is chargeable with knowledge of the mistake.</p>