## Facts

- George and Donna Doman owned one side of a side-by-side “double-block dwelling” at 34 Old Boston Road; Bertha Brogan owned the attached side at 36 Old Boston Road.
- Both parties traced title to a common grantor, Ada Doman (also known as Ada Maxwell), who once owned the entire property and later divided it into two lots.
- Ada acquired title to the property in 1955.
- In 1968, Brogan began renting the 36 Old Boston Road side; in 1972 she purchased that side from Ada.
- The deed to Brogan’s lot included metes-and-bounds calls and also tied the shared boundary to the building itself, stating that the line ran “through the center wall of a double dwelling,” and then proceeded “along the line running through the center wall of the double dwelling.”
- Title to the 34 Old Boston Road side later passed through Ada’s family and was conveyed to George and Donna Doman by deed dated March 18, 1986, using similar language to describe the common boundary by reference to the center wall.
- A later survey and a literal reading of certain metes-and-bounds calls, taken without giving effect to the center-wall reference, would place the boundary line inside the Domans’ residence, reaching into their interior living space (described in secondary summaries as including part of a bedroom).
- Brogan brought suit seeking a boundary location consistent with the metes-and-bounds description, even though it would cut into the Domans’ home.
- The trial court ruled for the Domans and set the boundary along the center wall dividing the two attached residences; Brogan appealed to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

## Issues

1. When deeds from a common grantor describe the division between two attached residences as a line running through the “center wall of a double dwelling,” but metes-and-bounds calls point to a different line that would run through a neighbor’s home, which description controls the boundary location?

## Decision

- The Superior Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the trial court’s judgment setting the boundary at the center line of the wall dividing the double-block dwelling.
- The court held that the deeds, read as a whole and in light of the common grantor’s division of a single double dwelling, showed an intent to make the center wall the dividing line.
- The court rejected an interpretation that treated the center-wall language as meaningless and that would place the boundary through interior portions of the Domans’ residence.

## Legal Principles

- Deeds are construed to carry out the intent of the parties, with close attention to the grantor’s intent as expressed in the instrument when read as a whole.
- Where adjoining parcels come from a common grantor and the instruments use parallel language to describe a shared boundary, the deeds may be read together to determine the intended division.
- When a deed description references a definite physical feature of the premises (an artificial monument or fixed structural feature) and other calls conflict, the reference to the physical feature can control, particularly where it better matches the deed’s overall meaning and the physical layout.
- A court may reject a deed construction that yields an unreasonable result, such as a boundary line that cuts through the interior of an attached residence, when the deed language supports a sensible alternative.

## Conclusion

The Superior Court affirmed the boundary determination in favor of the Domans, concluding that the deeds from the common grantor intended the dividing line between 34 and 36 Old Boston Road to run through the center wall separating the attached residences, and that this center-wall description controlled over conflicting metes-and-bounds calls that would place the line inside the Domans’ home.


Doman v. Brogan, 592 A.2d 104 (1991)