Court Opinion

ID: 9724197
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:48:25.616273+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:57.381679
License: Public Domain

*671O’Connor, J.
(dissenting). The court states, ante at 665-666, “[¡Inexplicably, the judgment did not contain an express provision describing the right of way appurtenant to the Wild property. The judgment, however, also provides: ‘The land hereby registered is subject to rights of way appurtenant to adjoining land as set forth in the decree in Registration Cases No. 13419 and 30925, so far as now in force and applicable.’ Segments 2 and 4 of the Wild right of way appear on the decree plan, although they are not so labeled.” The court is correct in stating that the decree contained no express provision regarding a right of way appurtenant to the Wild property. Registration Cases No. 13419 and 30925 do not refer to such a right of way, and segments 2 and 4 of the right of way claimed by the Wilds are not labeled oh the map attached to the 1972 decree. Indeed, that map, unlike the one appended to the court’s opinion, merely shows a fifteen-foot wide way which runs approximately east and west across the northern portion of the Second Herring Creek Farm Parcel and does not connect with any part of the Wild property. Thus, the 1972 decree, including the attached map, neither explicitly nor implicitly describes the registered land as being subject to a right of way appurtenant to the Wild property.
General Laws c. 185, § 47 (1990 ed.), provides that when land is registered the decree of registration “shall set forth ... all particular . . . easements to which the land or the owner’s estate is subject.” General Laws c. 185, § 45 (1990 ed.), provides that'the judgment of registration “shall be conclusive upon and against all persons .... Such judgment shall not be opened ... by any proceeding at law or in equity for reversing judgments or decrees.” A certificate of title may be amended if it does not reflect the underlying judgment, but, as this court stated in Hill v. Taylor, 319 Mass. 5, 6 (1946), “a final [registration] decree is a definitive judgment that binds the parties, even though it does not conform to the evidence or the findings or the order for a decree. ... If the failure to make the decree so conform was error, it could have been corrected only upon some sea*672sonable and legally recognized proceeding for appellate or other review.” (Citation omitted.) The Wilds could have timely appealed from the 1972 decree but did not do so. The court invalidly opened the decree by reading into it an easement to which the decree did not refer. While the result mandated by the Land Registration Act may seem to be inequitable,1 the court should not ignore the plain language of the Act. By doing so, the court not only violates the constitutional principle of separation of powers, but also undermines the integrity of the land registration system by creating the possibility that in any lot of registered land there is an undisclosed but valid interest.
The court incorrectly relies, ante at 667, on Killam v. March, 316 Mass. 646 (1944), and Feldman v. Souza, 27 Mass. App. Ct. 1142 (1989). Unlike the present case, those cases involved subsequent purchasers and relied entirely on a provision in G. L. c. 185, § 46, which deals only with purchasers. That provision says that “every subsequent purchaser of registered land taking a certificate of title for value and in good faith, shall hold the same free from all encumbrances except those noted on the certificate.” As this court reasoned in Killam, and the Appeals Court reasoned in Feld-man, the fair implication of that statutory language is that a purchaser who takes a certificate of title that is silent about an encumbrance that the purchaser knows is appurtenant to the land does not hold the land free from the encumbrance. The court today appears to reason that, if the Legislature can “integrate fairness and justice” into the land registration system, ante at 669, the court can rewrite the statute to integrate its own view of fairness and justice as well. I do not agree.

As the court recognizes, ante at 668 n.5, the Legislature has provided a mechanism to reimburse injured persons. G. L. c. 185, § 101 (1990 ed.).