Case ID: ohio_5/html/0436-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Collet, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

*John Winton, Lessor, v. William Cornish.
    Lease of a cellar and lower room in a building of several stories, gives the-lessee no interest, in the land — and if the whole building is destroyed by fire, all the lessee’s interest is gone.
    This was an ejectment, tried on the last circuit in Hamilton county. A verdict, by the direction of the court, was taken for the plaintiff; a motion was then made for a new trial, which was reserved for decision here.
    It was proved on the trial that the lessor was the owner in fee of a lot and house, at the northeast corner of Front and Sycamore streets, in Cincinnati; that the house was of several stories-in height, with a cellar underneath; that on August 29, 1830, he, ' by a lease, let to the defendant, for three years from the 14th of that month, “ the store-room and cellar thereunder in the northeast corner of Sycamore and Front streets, in the city of Cincinnati,” etc., at a rent of three hundred and fifty dollars a year, payable, etc.; that the defendant covenanted not to make any material alteration in the form of the room or cellar without the consent of the lessor; that the defendant was in possession of the store-room and cellar at the time; that the room is in the first story, measures about twenty-five feet by thirty, and is at the corner of the streets; that the other rooms in the house were rented to and occupied by others; that in June, 1831, the house was destroyed by an accidental fire, without the default of either party. It was also proved that the cellar was partly filled with rubbish from the burning of the house; that to this the defendant added, and built a small house over it, which occupies about the space of the room leased by him, not a greater, and that it is not higher than the ceiling of the room which he leased'; that of this building he holds possession, and that before he erected it he was forbidden to do so by the lessor.
    Starr and Caswell, for the defendant,
    argued that the land under the room and cellar passed by the lease to the defendant, and that he has still a right to the possession, for his term, of the space filled by the room and cellar before they were destroyed by fire, and cited 1 Co. Lit. by Thomas, 234, 248, 280; Shep. Touch. 94; 2 Saund. 401; *Co. Lit. 56, 562; 1 Term, 701; 4 Cruise, 321; 6 Greenl. 436; 6 Mass. 67; 16 Mass. 238; 3 Johns. 44; 1 Dall. 210; 1 Term, 310; 4 Dane’s Ab. 378; 3 Kent’s Com. 371-374; 8 Cowp. 730.
    Storer. and Fox, for the plaintiff,
    contended that by the lease the room, and cellar only passed, but no interest in the land; that the fire destroyed the room and cellar, and left nothing .conveyed by the lease. They cited Story on Bailment, 275; Woodfall’s Landlord and Tenant, 151.
   Collet, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court:

The word land includes not only the face of the earth, but every-. thing under it or over it. He who owns a piece of land, therefore, is the owner of everything underneath in a direct line to the center of the earth and everything above to the heavens. No person can undermine or ovorhang another’s land without violating his rights. 2 B. C. 18. The owner, of the land can convey it, or the profits of it, for such terms and in such parcels as he thinks proper. He can grant the right to take all the minerals underneath, or those twenty feet below the surface only; to dig all the turf, to inhabit a cave, if there is one, to occupy a. room in the third story, to occupy the second story, a room in the first story, or the cellar, or a part of the cellar. By such grants the land does not pass. When the mineral or the turf is exhausted, the grantee has no right even to enter the .premises. When the cave, is destroyed by a convulsion or otherwise, there is nothing that was granted remaining. It is so of the rooms or cellar of a house. The lessees of a middle story of a house are limited above and below as well as on the sides,' yet the land is as necessary to sustain their part of the house as that below. Where the whole of the profits of a piece of land are granted to an individual the land passes. Such a grant manifests such an intention. When, the profits are gone why retain the land ? But when a part only of the profits are granted, the land does not in general pass, although livery is made. Co. Lit. 4, 6. By the grant of a whole house to an individual, unless there are productive ^minerals underneath, the whole profits of the land on which it stands are granted, and the land passes. By the granting of the cellar the whole profits of the land underneath are not parted with, nor by the granting of any one or two rooms when they are overhung by others. It is said by 2 Blackstone, 19, that by the term land anything terrestrial may pass, but by any other term nothing else passes but what falls with the strictest propriety within the meaning of the term used. It has been well said in argument that what passes depends on the intention of the parties, to be collected from the lease. 2 Bac. Ab., Lease, K.

The forms of leases for rooms in the upper stories and for cellars do not vary, that we know of. A clause that the form of the-room or cellar should not be materially altered, would more likely be introduced into the lease of a store-room than of a room above. They would probably look upon a lease conveying a room for the same term, whether on one floor or another, as conveying the same interest. Whole rows of two, three, and four-story buildings, in-the most important parts of a city, are sometimes at once destroyed by fire. Can the lessees of cellars, holding by leases suclv as this, cover themselves in their cellars and prevent the entry of their landlords to reconstruct' the houses ? Can the lessees of basement stories of public buildings, with leases such as this, when the edifices are destroyed by fire, roof the basement story and prevent the agents of the public from entering to reconstruct the edifice? It appears very clear to us that the parties to. such leases do not sojntend.

Upon the whole, the motion must be overruled, and judgment entered on the verdict.