Easements

Owner of power line easement may install fibre optic cables without exceeding the scope of the easement

In a case applying what appears to be the majority rule, the Seventh Circuit held that an easement for power lines included the right to install lines for other purposes -- in this case fibre optic cables. West v. Louisville Gas & Electric Co., 951 F.3d 827 (7th Cir. 2020). The Texas Supreme Court rejected this...

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Grant of permission to use driveway 31 years after initial use did not defeat prescriptive easement claim

Owners who traversed a road over neighboring land to get to a public way for more than 30 years established a right to a prescriptive easement despite a grant of permission by the owner of the servient estate that occurred long after the statute of limitations had run....

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No easement by necessity to access fire escape

No easement by necessity exists that would allow a condo owner to pass through another condo to reach a fire escape. Nor was there an express easement even though the condo documents gave the unit owner the right to use the fire escape. Chamberlain v. Badaoui,  95 Mass App. Ct. 670, 2019 Mass. App. LEXIS 93, 2019 WL 3334700 (Mass. App. Ct. 2019). No express right to go through the neighboring unit to get to the fire escape was created and the court refused to create one by... Read more about No easement by necessity to access fire escape

Easement owner who exceeds the scope of the easement can obtain new use rights by prescription

Owner of an easement of passage that also uses the land without permission to park a car, use the area as a yard and maintain the lawn exceeds the scope of the easement and if done for the statutory period can obtain an easement by prescription for the longstanding uses. Savoie v. Zaniboni,  27 LCR 165, 2019 Mass. LCR LEXIS 58, 2019 WL 1511101 (Mass. Land Ct. 2019). The court applies the traditional presumption that uses of another's land are nonpermissive unless evidence of permission is present.

Trespass to use mineral rights one property to extract minerals from a neighboring parcel.

The West Virginia Supreme Court held that a mineral owner or lessee that has the right to use the surface of one parcel to extract minerals or oil or gas from that parcel does not have the right to use that access to take minerals from neighboring parcels whose owners conferred no such rights. EQT Production Co. v. Crowder,2019 W. Va....

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External stairway encroachment on neighboring land by one foot is allowed to remain with damages only for the trespass victim

A Massachusetts court has found that a one foot encroachment on neighboring property by a new external stairway on a building is de minimus because the alley is hardly used, and the encroachment is both small and necessary to make the stairway consistent with the building code. Krieger v. Lanark LJS LLC, 2019 Mass. App. Unpub. LEXIS 345, 2019 WL 1976015...

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