RICHARDSON-KELLETT COMPANY, A CORPORATION, APPELLANT,
v.
O. B. KLINE, APPELLEE

Fla. | 1915-07-01
70 Fla. 23 Florida Supreme Court (1915) Caution
Also reported at: 69 So. 203
Cited by 27 cases

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Synopsis

Richardson-Kellett Company sought specific performance to enforce a land sale contract that included a reservation allowing the State Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund to access the property for drainage purposes. The Florida Supreme Court reversed the trial court's decree, holding that such a reservation over Everglades swamp land was not an objectionable encumbrance under the circumstances.


Holding

The court held that under the circumstances—involving swamp and overflowed lands held in trust for drainage reclamation—the reservation does not constitute an encumbrance of which the appellee has any right to complain. The reservation merely preserves a bare right to access the land for drainage improvement at the State's expense, not the grantee's, and does not reserve any part of the technical fee.


Key Quotes

“the bare right to go upon the land conveyed at all times but solely for the purpose of the betterment thereof by drainage in the proper exercise of their trust”

Describes the nature of the reservation—a limited right of access for drainage purposes only, not a fee or ownership interest

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Facts & Procedural History

Richardson-Kellett Company contracted to sell Everglades land to O.B. Kline. The land was part of the vast Everglades territory in southern Florida, c…

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Opinion of the Court
Taylor, C. J.,

Taylor, C. J.,

(after stating the facts.) — Ordinarily the reservation of such a right over the land conveyed as the one reserved here to the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund, of the State of Florida, would be an incumbrance upon the title, but under the circumstances surrounding-the land in question, its situs, character and the title thereto, we do' not think that it is such an incumbrance of which the appellee has any right to complain. The land in question is a part of what is known as the Everglades in the extreme southern end of the peninsula of Florida, a vast territory of several millions of acres that is in major part at least, if not wholly unfit, because of its swamp or overflowed condition, for either habitation or cultivation, unless it be reclaimed by thorough drainage. They form part of that vast territory granted to the State of Florida, by the Congress of the United States known as swamp and overflowed lands for the purpose of being reclaimed by drainage. They in turn were vested in trust for the same purpose, by State legislation in the said Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund of the State. In execution of its trust this State Board of Trustees are now, and were at the time of the conveyance of the land in question to the grantors of the appellee, engaged in the vast and costly work of draining the said Everglades, and when they sold any part of the said Everglades land in advance of 'the drainage thereof, it was a wise precaution on their part, charged as they were with the duty and expense of reclaiming the same by drainage, to reserve in their deeds conveying the same, the right to go upon the land conveyed at all times but solely for the purpose of the betterment thereof by drainage in the proper exercise of their trust.- All of these facts were, or should have been, well known to the appellee when he contracted with the appellant for the purchase of the tract in question. The proposed reservation in the deed tendered by the appellant does not undertake to reserve any part of the technical fee in the land, but simply perpetuates in the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund the same reservation contained in their deed to the appellant, vis, the bare right to go upon the land for the sole purpose of carrying out the scheme of draining and improving the Drainage District in which this land lies; the Drainage District having been theretofore specifically identified and named by a public act of the Legislature. See Chapter' 5709, Laws of 1907. We do not think that the appellee has any right to complain, under the circumstances here, of the reservation contained in the appellant’s deed tendered to him, providing as it does solely for the right ho go upon the land conveyed thereby to better the same in common with other similar and adjacent lands by drainage, not at the cost of the grantee appellee, but at the cost of the State.

It follows from what has been said that the decree appealed from must be and is hereby reversed at the cost of the appellee.

Shackleford, Cockrell, Whitfield and Ellis, JJ-, concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Pembroke v. The Peninsular Terminal Co., 108 Fla. 46 (Fla. 1933)
    …o the subject matter of contracts, are parts of the contracts, whether so expressed or referred to in the contract or not. See also Leusman v. Kyle, 121 So. 464, 97, Fla. 465, and cases therein cited. In Richardson-Kellett Co. v. Kline, 70 Fla. 23, 69 So. 203, it was held that, in a conveyance of certain lands in the Everglades, a reservation of a right in favor of the State to construct a drainage canal through the land would not be a breach of a covenant against encumbrances; the right in question bein…
  • Burnett v. C. W. Greene & Robert A. Meier, 97 Fla. 1007 (Fla. 1929)
    …the Federal Court of the Southern District of Florida and afterwards amended by Chapter 5709, Laws 1907, in which a drainage district was “specifically indentified and named by a public act of the Legislature. ’ ’ See Richardson-Kellet Co. v. Kline, 70 Fla. 23, 69 So. R. 203. That board consisted of the Governor, Comptroller, State Treasurer, Attorney General and Commissioner of Agriculture and their successors in office. That act was superseded by.Chap. 6456, Acts of 1923, and amendments thereto in whic…
  • Normandy Beach Props. Corp. v. Adams, 107 Fla. 583 (Fla. 1933)
    …tence. County Commissioners of Columbia County vs. King, 13 Fla. 451; State ex rel. Ellis vs. Tampa Water Works Co., 56 Fla. 858, 47 So. 358; McCaskill vs. Union Naval Stores Co. 59 Fla. 571, 52 So. 961; Richardson-Kellett Co. vs. Kline, 70 Fla. 23, 69 So. 203; Leusman vs. Kyle, 97 Fla. 465, 121 So. 464; James vs. Gollnick, 100 Fla. 829, 130 So. 450; Wheeler vs. Sullivan, 90 Fla. 711, 106 So. 876; Board of Education for Jefferson County vs. Littrell, 173 Ky. 78, 190 S. W. 465; Van Ness vs. Royal Phosphate…

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