Spring v. Conklin

Headnote

Spring v. Conklin, 173 App. Div. 719 , affirmed.

Appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the second judicial department, entered December 5, 1916, unanimously affirming a judgment in favor of plaintiffs entered upon a verdict in an action of ejectment to dispossess the defendants who, as fishermen, maintain huts and a whale boat house on the ocean shore or the land adjoining thereto in the village of Amagansett, town of East Hampton, county of Suffolk, L. I. The defendants set up a general denial and a separate defense alleging the existence of a public easement on the shore of said land, and that any occupancy by the defendants of the premises in question does not impose upon the land a burden inconsistent with such public easement. Plaintiffs’ predecessor in title purchased the land in question from the town of East Hampton. The tract, bounded southeasterly by the Atlantic ocean, comprised what is known as dune lands. The deed passing between the parties contained the following: “ Reserving from the sale of said tract the right of the inhabitants of the Town of East Hampton to fish upon the shore, to cart, spread nets, leave their boats, and use said shore as they always have done and is now practised upon the shore west of said tract, in said town.”