Sheffield Water Co. v. Elk Tanning Co.

Citations

• 225 Pa. 614
• 74 A. 742
• 1909 Pa. LEXIS 709

Syllabus

<p>Deed — Reservation—Exception—Waters—Water companies.</p> <p>1. The essential characteristic of a reservation in a deed as distinguished from an exception is that its subject is something that did not exist before, but is created by and grows out of the transaction. An exception applies only where the subject already exists.</p> <p>2. Where a deed invests the grantee with the legal title to the whole of the premises described in the grant without excepting an inch of land falling within the description, or any of the structures, buildings or improvements thereon, but reserving to the grantor the right to derive a water supply from a particular stream, using for the purpose the dam, reservoir and pipes constructed and laid upon the premises conveyed, the easement is a newly created right arising from a reservation, and not from an exception.</p> <p>3. The reservation of an easement in land such as a water right does not of itself import a use in the grantor to the exclusion of the grantee. If an exclusive use is intended, it should be so expressed in the deed.</p> <p>4. A reservation in a deed is exclusively for the benefit of the grantor; it is not a grant of anything to the grantee, but is in derogation of the grant and therefore an abatement. It results that in construing an ambiguous reservation it is to be taken most strongly against the grantor, since he is the person to avoid ambiguity by speaking out.</p> <p>5. Where a deed reserves water rights with use of reservoir, pipe lines, etc., but not an exclusive use of the water right and plant, and subsequently the grantee conveys the land to another without mentioning any reservation of water right, but thereafter continues to use the water right, the grantor in the original deed cannot complain of the continued use of the water right by its grantee in the absence of any objection by the grantee in the second deed; and even the latter could not successfully object because it took title with the full knowledge o