Court Opinion

ID: 9548106
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:57:34.486512+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:27.904863
License: Public Domain

ROONEY, Justice,
specially concurring.
I agree with the majority opinion with reference to its holding on the issues pertaining to nuisance and attorney fees. I do not agree with all of that said in the majority opinion relative to the restrictive covenants issue. And I believe the court need not have addressed such issue inasmuch as the case could have been disposed of on the nuisance issue.
Accordingly, there is no useful purpose in detailing my concern over that which I consider to be dicta. The principal fault of the holding of the majority opinion relative to restrictive covenants is its effect upon title searches. Under it, a record title search, by a purchaser of appellants’ property, for example, will not determine title status. It will not reflect the property to be subject to the restrictive covenants. It will show that when the property was conveyed to appellants on May 15, 1973, there was no record of a restrictive covenant on it. The plat of the land to which it is a part reflected that it was subject to covenants and restrictions of record. Of record was only the first set of restrictive covenants, which did not apply to appellants’ property.1 A title search, then, could properly *308certify the property as not burdened by the covenants. Under the majority opinion, however, the title searcher would be faced with deciding the intent of the seller as to the existence or nonexistence of the covenants (not as to the meaning of covenants acknowledged to exist) — an impossible task as a general rule.
In this respect, the majority opinion confuses the existence of constructive notice of that which is of record (a true constructive notice) with notice of existing uses or activities from which a duty to inquire may result. At the time of purchase by appellants, there were no such uses or activities, but if there were such creating a duty in this instance, the resulting inquiry would simply have determined no use restriction on appellants’ property at the time of purchase — regardless of the seller’s intention. The seller is not a party to this lawsuit.
I do not mean to say that, as between appellants and the seller, an understanding or agreement could not be enforced regardless of prior recordation of evidence of such. The principal purpose of recordation is to give notice to those subsequently interested parties. Connolly v. Des Moines & Central Iowa Railway Company, 246 Iowa 874, 68 N.W.2d 320 (1955); Cheyenne National Bank v. Citizens Savings Bank, Wyo., 391 P.2d 933 (1964). But it is not essential to the validity of an agreement between the parties to the instrument. Martin v. Commercial National Bank of Macon, Georgia, 245 U.S. 513, 38 S.Ct. 176, 62 L.Ed.2d 441 (1918); Godwin v. Gerling, 362 Mo. 19, 239 S.W.2d 352, 40 A.L.R.2d 1250 (1951); Amana Society v. Colony Inn, Inc., Iowa, 315 N.W.2d 101 (1982). One may rely on the recorded title to real property in absence of actual knowledge of the title in fact or of facts sufficient to put him on inquiry concerning the same. Williams v. Jackson, 107 U.S. 478, 2 S.Ct. 814, 27 L.Ed. 529 (1883); Federal Land Bank of Spokane v. Union Cent. Life Ins. Co., 54 Idaho 161, 29 P.2d 1009 (1934). There is no evidence whatsoever in the record that appellants had actual knowledge of any restrictive covenants placed upon their property as of the time of purchase.2 And, as indicated supra, any inquiry as a result of facts which would have put them on notice of such covenants would have resulted in a determination that there were no covenants as of the time of purchase.
The amended restrictive covenants were not only of no potency as far as appellants were concerned because they were imposed subsequent to purchase by appellants, but they were adopted only by Fear Ranches, Inc. and not by the other owners of property in the subdivision (including appellants) at the time of adoption. Hein v. Lee, Wyo., 549 P.2d 286 (1976).
I would reverse the holding of the district court relative to the restrictive covenants and attorney fees issues and would affirm its holding relative to the nuisance issue, remanding the case for the purpose of entering a judgment enjoining appellants from any unreasonable, unlawful or unwarranted use of their property which works an obstruction or injury to the reasonable use by others of their property, specifically enjoining the use of appellants’ property for storing, keeping or maintaining drilling rigs, pipes, scrap material or other items of an unsightly nature, and specifically enjoining the use of appellants’ property for dispatching or directing truck traffic or for any activity creating an unreasonably loud noise.

. Appellants purchased the property from Fear Ranches, Inc. and negotiated the purchase with Frank Fear, an officer of the corporation. Frank Fear testified that he vaguely remembered talking to appellant Marvin Bowers subsequent to the sale about the restrictive covenants and that he was not, at the time, concerned about haying machinery and welding activities by appellants on the property. Marvin Bowers testified that he did not know of the covenants when he executed the contract for deed, and that Frank Fear subsequently told him that it "really doesn’t pertain to” him. He testified that during the negotiations for purchase of the property, the restrictive covenants were never discussed, and as far as he knew "there was [sic] no restrictive covenants.”