Blakeley v. Gorin

The Court first characterized § 30 as a legislative adjustment of equitable remedies rather than necessarily a governmental taking of a property interest. Restrictive covenants are property interests, but an injunction has never been an automatic remedy in equity. Courts traditionally weigh equitable considerations before ordering specific performance, and § 30 directs that discretion toward specified considerations of changed circumstances, suitable land use, and the public interest.

Treating an injunction as constitutionally mandatory whenever a covenant benefits a neighboring owner would improperly convert an equitable remedy into a constitutional entitlement. The Court noted that modern zoning and other public land-use regulation had substantially displaced the role once played by private deed restrictions, making it appropriate for the Legislature to authorize courts to withhold injunctive relief in defined circumstances.

Even assuming that limiting the remedy to damages constitutes a taking, the Court held that the taking would be for a public purpose. Section 30 promotes the reasonable use and marketability of land burdened by obsolete or inequitable restrictions. Here, allowing development of a long-vacant urban parcel into a major hotel-apartment project would serve public interests, including productive land use and benefits to Boston’s tax base, even though the developer would also profit.

Riverbank Improvement Co. v. Chadwick did not compel a contrary result. In Riverbank, the restriction’s enforcement had expressly been found not harmful to the public interest, so its elimination benefited only private owners. Here, by contrast, the trial judge supportably found that enforcement would be contrary to the public interest, and the respondents would receive compensatory damages for the loss of their enforceable benefit.

The respondents stipulated that they did not seek enforcement of the cellar-depth restriction. The Court therefore affirmed the decree declaring that restriction obsolete and unenforceable without further analysis.

The respondents did not pursue the setback restriction at trial or on appeal. The Court therefore affirmed the decree declaring the setback requirement obsolete and unenforceable, observing that public land-use controls and zoning procedures addressed the relevant development concerns.

A garage is not a stable within the meaning of the historic restriction, which referred to facilities involving domestic animals. The prohibition on stables had also become obsolete with the replacement of horse-drawn transportation and the emergence of public health and land-use regulation.

The proposed hotel and apartment use was not a prohibited mercantile use. Under prior Massachusetts precedent, “mercantile” referred to buying and selling commercial commodities for profit and did not encompass the operation of a hotel. Incidental shops customarily associated with a large hotel did not transform the project into an impermissible mercantile use.

The bridge would not prevent physical passage through the alley because it would begin thirteen feet above ground. But it would fill most of the space between the Ritz-Carlton and the new building for twelve stories, reducing the light and air reaching the rear apartments in the respondents’ building. The evidence permitted a finding that this loss was substantial rather than trivial.

The original purpose of the open-passageway restriction included preserving light and air for the abutting residences. Unlike restrictions designed primarily to preserve a neighborhood’s general residential character, this covenant secured a particular and continuing benefit to each affected building.

Changes in the Back Bay did not render that particular benefit obsolete. In an increasingly dense urban environment, light and air were more valuable, not less. Thus, the trial judge was wrong to conclude that the passageway restriction was obsolete or that only nominal damages could result from its violation.

Section 30 allows a court to deny injunctive enforcement where changed neighborhood conditions, public land-use controls, or other circumstances materially reduce the need for the restriction; where enforcement would impede the land’s most suitable reasonable use and impair growth inconsistently with the public interest; or where an injunction would otherwise be inequitable or contrary to the public interest.

The Back Bay surroundings had changed from a neighborhood of single-family dwellings to one containing apartment buildings and institutional structures. The respondents’ rear-facing residents already looked toward the high-rise Ritz-Carlton, and a taller building on the petitioners’ vacant parcel was likely even without the proposed bridge. Against that setting, the bridge’s additional impact on light and air was comparatively modest.

Multiple public bodies controlled the project’s design, and the project also required zoning variances and permission to bridge over a public alley. These public controls reduced the need to rely exclusively on the private restriction to regulate the project’s form and effects.

The record supported the finding that a freestanding building on the small vacant parcel was economically infeasible. The proposed connection was necessary to allow the lower hotel floors to use the Ritz-Carlton’s services, making the bridge integral to the parcel’s most suitable use rather than an arbitrary intrusion.

The balance of equities favored damages. An injunction would impose a far greater loss on the petitioners and would leave valuable land undeveloped, whereas damages could compensate the respondents for their actual loss of light and air. The Court remanded for a determination of compensatory damages, while allowing construction to begin upon such security for the respondents as the trial judge deemed appropriate.