RIGHT TO LIGHT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24, 28 July 1911, Page 2

RIGHT TO LIGHT.

A SHOP IN WILLIS-STREET. COURT OF APPEAL ARGUMENT. Important questions regarding the right of an owner of land to light frotn an adjoining property were argued in the Lom-t o* Appeal yesterday end toThe parties were Walter Smart, of Wellington, pawnbroker, appellant, and Robert Ljonel Levin, of' 1 Wellington, gentleman, respondent. The iesuee of law raised in the case «ra very important. They are as follow : (1) Does the statement of claim dieclose a canee of action against defend- , £111 1 4 (2) Dots ,' t disclose that plaintiff is entitled to a n ? ht of access or Uhe of light over the land m Willis-Ptr-et? (d) Are tho nccEsoary parties before the court 7 !? %|i"^? nt ' tho C!licf Felice eaid ; "Plaintiff is the proprietor of Lot 2. on the plan, and defendant owns Loi, 1, which js adjoining. On the former, there is a wooden building occupied b. Smart as a shop. The building is buiU up to the northern boundary line, am] has a window overlooking Lot 1. Smart claims thai, the right to light has been acquired to this window in the follow ing way: That when the land was under lease from the then freeholder, who owned both lots, in 1868, the building wßfcw ßfc erected and since that time the window had had light from Lot 1. . , It docs not seem that the provision;? of Section 59 of tho Land Transfer Act will assist Smart. It may be that if he had remained under his lease, and not have founded his title to relief on his certificate of title, he would have had a right to the light, and that the putting of Lot 1 under the Land Transfer Act would not have defeated that ritjht. . . Plaintiff must, I think, rest tiis case upon hie own certificate of title, that is, of the land that has been transferied to him by defendant arid other parties There is nothing allowing that he had transferred to him any easement, and there is nothing on his certificate of title of Lot 1 to show that an easement existed. Following ths ca.«=e of Mackech.iie v. Bell, decided by Sir Joshua Williams, as I feel bound to do, I must therefore hold that plaintiff's statement of claim does not disclose a cause of action. I may add that I think that any rights acquired under the lease were gone by the^ merger of the lease." The Bench Was occupied by Sir Joshua Williams and Justices Edwards, Chapman, and Sim. Mr .A. Dunn appeared for appellant, ? nd Mf-H. d. Bell, X.C.. with him Mr. G. H. Fell, for respondent. (Proceeding.)