Whittier v. Winkley
Supreme Court of New Hampshire
Trespass, quare clausum, tried by the court. The defendants own a tract of land in Newton, about a quarter of a mile from the highway. The only access to it is by a cart-path over land adjoining the highway, now owned by the plaintiff.
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Trespass, quare clausum, tried by the court. The defendants own a tract of land in Newton, about a quarter of a mile from the highway. The only access to it is by a cart-path over land adjoining the highway, now owned by the plaintiff. Originally the plaintiff’s father owned both tracts, but he sold the tract bounded by the highway, and thereafter continued to use the cart-path across it in going to and from the rear lot, until his decease in 1830. Before the defendants bought the rear lot, in 1880, a part of it had been cultivated, and the remainder had been used as a pasture and wood-lot,…
1Opinion of the CourtStanley, J.
The conveyance of land to which there is no reasonable or useful access except over other adjoining land of the grantor, or land of a stranger, is sufficient to raise the presumption that a way over the grantor’s land is intended by the parties to pass as a necessary incident of the land granted. It is reasonable to suppose that the grantee bought the land for some useful purpose, and if he cannot enjoy the beneficial rise of it except by means of a way over the adjoining land of the grantor, it is but reasonable and just to find that he acquired such a way. The same reasoning applies when a…
2Cases cited2 opinions
- Myers v. DunnSupreme Court of Connecticut · 1881
- Sargent v. HubbardMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1869
3Cited by4 opinions
- Traders, Inc. v. BartholomewSupreme Court of Vermont · 1983
- Kalman v. HutchesonSupreme Court of New Hampshire · 1971
- Kalman v. HutchesonSupreme Court of New Hampshire · 1971
- Rights-of-Way Across National Forests, Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel1980