Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

126 Kan. 613

Hartman v. Wolverton

Supreme Court of Kansas

Decided October 6, 1928

Supreme Court of Kansas · decided 1928-10-06

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“"... and the fact that other lot owners heretofore have been permitted to build temporary residences on their lots in disregard of the restrictive clause is of no consequence." (p. 614.)”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including Welsh v. Flo, Hecht v. Stephens

Relies on Hartman v. Wolverton

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1928-10-06

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently May 1971

8 state decisions

30192819301940195019601970decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1The opinion of the court was delivered by

Dawson, J.:

¶2This is another chapter in litigation which has already received this court’s attention. See Hartman v. Wolverton, 125 Kan. 202, 263 Pac. 789, where the facts are so comprehensively stated that they need not now be repeated.

¶3The trial court made findings of fact and conclusions of law adverse to defendant and granted a permanent injunction against his violation of the restrictive clause of the deed under which the property had been conveyed to him.

¶4Defendant appeals for the purpose of getting this court to explain the meaning of the restrictive clause—

“No residence costing less than twenty-five hundred dollars shall be built on any lot in this addition or any subdivision thereof.”

¶5We think this clause so simple that it needs no interpretation and that the multiplying of words would cloud and not clarify it. As applied to this case, it means that the $800 house defendant built *614at the rear of the lot for a residence until he gets around to build a $2,500 house, or the $6,000 house he hopes to build sometime, is a plain breach of the restrictive clause in the deed; and the fact that other lot owners heretofore have been permitted to build temporary residences on their lots in disregard of the restrictive clause is of no consequence.

¶6Defendant cites good law-book doctrine that restrictive clauses in deeds are to be fairly and reasonably interpreted, neither too narrowly nor too broadly. Of course that is the law. And in consonance therewith we are bound to hold that an $800 residence, although designed eventually to be used as a poultry house, violates the textbook rules of interpretation invoked by the appellant.

¶7The judgment is affirmed.

/126/kan/613 · .json · Public domain