Case Title: Traywick v. Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp.

Citation: 170 So. 2d 802

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1965-01-07T00:00:00Z

Document:
170 So. 2d 802 (1965)
Artemus TRAYWICK
v.
TRANSCONTINENTAL GAS PIPE LINE CORPORATION.
5 Div. 790.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
January 7, 1965.
L. Lister Hill and Godbold, Hobbs & Copeland, Montgomery, for appellant.
Johnston, Johnston & Courtney, Mobile, for appellee.
*803 GOODWYN, Justice.
Appeal by plaintiff from judgment of nonsuit induced by adverse rulings on pleadings (Code 1940, Tit. 7, § 819) in a statutory action of ejectment (Code 1940, Tit. 7, § 938; § 223, Form 32) brought against appellee to recover possession of certain lands in Coosa County. River Construction Corporation, originally a co-defendant, was stricken by amendment and is not a party to this appeal.
The complaint, as amended, seeks possession of the following land, viz: NW ¼ of the SE ¼, less 6 acres on the North side thereof, and the E ½ of the NE ¼, all in Sect. 10, Tp. 21 North, R. 17 East, in Coosa County, Alabama.
Appellee filed the following plea to the complaint, viz:
Two right of way agreements are attached to and made a part of the plea. Both were executed on March 17, 1949. One, reciting a paid cash consideration of $100, grants a right of way across the E ¼ of the NE ¼ of Sect. 10. The other, reciting a $5 cash consideration, grants a right of way across the remainder of the land sued for. In other respects, the agreements are identical. They "grant, bargain, sell and convey" to appellee, its successors and assigns, "a right of way and easement for the purposes of laying, construction, maintaining, operating, repairing, altering, replacing and removing pipe lines (with valves, regulators, meters, fittings, appliances, tie-overs, and appurtenant facilities) for the transportation of gas, oil, petroleum products, or any other liquids, gases, or substances which can be transported through a pipe line, the Grantee to have the right to select the route, under, upon, over, through and across the lands of Grantor," described in the respective agreements.
The agreements also contain the following pertinent provisions, viz:
"TO HAVE AND TO HOLD said right of way and easement unto said Grantee, its successors and assigns, until such first pipe line be constructed and so long thereafter as a pipe line is maintained thereon; and the undersigned *804 hereby bind themselves, their heirs, executors and administrators (and successors and assigns) to warrant and forever defend all and singular said premises unto the Grantee, its successors and assigns, against every person whomsoever lawfully claiming or to claim the same or any part thereof.
Appellant demurred to the plea on the ground that "it affirmatively appears from said plea that the right of way agreements therein alleged, insofar as they purport to grant to the said defendant the right or option to lay or construct one or more additional lines of pipe under, upon, over, through or across the lands of plaintiff from time to time subsequent to the execution and delivery of the alleged agreements, violate the Rule against Perpetuities and are therefore void and invalid and are not a defense to this action."
Appellant then filed three replications to the plea, as follows:
1. Joined issue on the plea.
2. "That in, to-wit, November 1961 said defendant did lay or construct a pipe line across the lands of plaintiff described in plaintiff's complaint, as amended, that the said pipe line was the third such pipe line laid or constructed by said defendant across said lands, that more than sixty (60) days had expired subsequent to the completion of the construction of said pipe line before the filing by plaintiff of his said complaint in this cause and that the said defendant had not upon the filing of said complaint or prior thereto paid to plaintiff or deposited in the First National Bank at Wetumpka, Alabama, a sum equivalent to One Dollar ($1.00) per lineal rod of such said pipe line."
3. The same as 2 except alleging, in effect, that appellee had not paid or deposited the required $1 per lineal rod at the time of filing the replication (February 21, 1963).
Appellee demurred to replications 2 and 3, separately and severally. The substance of the demurrer is that the replication does not confess or avoid the plea and that the failure to pay the $1 a lineal rod is not sufficient ground to cancel or void the agreements. The demurrer was sustained.
Appellant, because of the adverse rulings on the demurrers, moved for a nonsuit and a judgment of nonsuit was rendered. This appeal is from that judgment.
We have concluded that the rulings on the demurrers were without error and that the judgment appealed from is due to be affirmed.
The common law rule against perpetuities, applicable in this jurisdiction (Code 1940, Tit. 47, § 16), has been stated as follows:
This "Rule" is referred to sometimes as the rule against remoteness of vesting. "The purpose of the `Rule' is to prevent property from being inalienable after *805 a reasonable time, and to that end * * estates must become vested within a certain time * * *." Edward W. Faith, "Perpetuities," 2 Ala. Law Journal 172 (May, 1927). As said in Lyons v. Bradley, 168 Ala. 505, 513, 53 So. 244, 247, per Sayre, J.: "Vested interests are not subject to the rule against perpetuities. Gray, § 205 et seq. The rule is directed against the creation of remote contingent interests the creation of such interests at a time beyond the limit fixed by the rule." See, also: Rountree v. Richardson, 268 Ala. 448, 452, 453, 108 So. 2d 152; Dozier v. Troy Drive-In-Theatres, Inc., 265 Ala. 93, 104-105, 89 So. 2d 537; Henderson v. Troy Bank & Trust Co., 250 Ala. 456, 466, 34 So. 2d 835, supra.
In the Rountree and Dozier cases it was held that the rule against perpetuities does not apply when "both the grantor and grantee have an interest in the fee which they can convey and thereby relieve the property of the exemption from trade which the rule seeks to prohibit." We view the right of way instruments as conveying to appellee a presently vested interest in the fee; thereby making it possible for appellee and the other owners of fee interests in the lands to convey the full fee by joining in a conveyance of such fee.
Although this court has not considered instruments like these, similar instruments have been before other courts which have generally held them not to be obnoxious to the rule against perpetuities. See: Sorrell v. Tennessee Gas Transmission Company, (Ky.) 314 S.W.2d 193; Texas Eastern Transmission Corporation v. Carman, (Ky.) 314 S.W.2d 684; Vandiver v. Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corporation, 222 F. Supp. 731 (1963); Hamilton v. Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp., 236 Miss. 429, 110 So. 2d 612; Ashcot, Inc. v. Texas Eastern Transmission Corporation, 241 Miss. 392, 129 So. 2d 405; Baker v. Tennessee Gas Transmission Company, 194 Tenn. 368, 250 S.W.2d 566; Crawford v. Tennessee Gas Transmission Company, Tex.Civ.App., 250 S.W.2d 237; Caruthers v. Peoples Natural Gas Company, 155 Pa.Super. 332, 38 A.2d 713; Restatement of the Law, Property, § 399, p. 2341; Gray, The Rule Against Perpetuities, 4th Ed., § 279, p. 309. These authorities are to the effect that such instruments convey presently vested easements as distinguished from options to acquire additional servitudes at indefinite future times.
We think the following from Sorrell v. Tennessee Gas Transmission Company, supra, very adequately disposes of the question of the instruments violating the rule against perpetuities, viz:
Appellant further insists that the trial court erred in sustaining appellee's demurrers to his replications 2 and 3 to appellee's plea. The question presented is whether *807 the failure of appellee to pay or deposit the $1 per lineal rod for each additional pipe line, as provided for in the right of way agreements, is ground for cancelling or voiding said agreements. One answer to this is found in the following from Caruthers v. Peoples Natural Gas Co., 155 Pa. Super. 332, 38 A.2d 713, 715, supra, with which we are in accord, viz.:
Another answer to the question is the rule that failure to pay the consideration recited in a deed is not ground for cancelling the deed. See: Planners v. Hanners, 262 Ala. 143, 145, 77 So. 2d 484; Wilfe v. Waller, 261 Ala. 436, 437, 74 So. 2d 451; Wells v. Wells, 252 Ala. 390, 391, 41 So. 2d 564; Wells v. Wells, 249 Ala. 649, 651, 32 So. 2d 697.
Our view is that appellee, upon receiving the right of way agreements, acquired a vested interest in appellant's land with the right to lay a pipe line in and across said land, and with the right also to lay, from time to time, additional pipe lines across it; that the provision for payment of $1 per lineal rod within 60 days after completion of any additional line was not a *808 condition of the granting of the easement but simply fixed the time for making payment; and that appellee's failure to pay said additional sum has not rendered inoperative the grant of either easement and is not ground for cancelling either right of way agreement. Accordingly, the judgment appealed from is due to be affirmed.
Affirmed.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and LAWSON and COLEMAN, JJ., concur.