In last week’s blog, we talked about the importance of calling a lawyer to make sure an easement is legally enforceable—or that it’s an easement at all. This week we examine a case where the description of the property did not support the plaintiff’s claim of an easement.
In 1972, landowners in St. Clair County began to deed parts of their land to other owners. Relatives of the defendants in this case received the back half of the parent parcel, but it did not include access to the main road. To remedy their landlocked problem, the deed included an easement over the front half of the lot to access the road. The easement was described as:
an easement over and across the lands of the grantors in a North and South direction same being an existing roadway from (the main road) to the lands of the grantees, approximately 20 feet wide to be used for ingress and egress to the lands herein granted.
About ten years later, the grantees (relatives of the defendants who owned the back-half of the original lot) created another parcel from the southeast corner of their lot. The problem, of course, was that the new parcel was just as landlocked and would also need the easement. To permit the new owners access to the road, the new deed and subsequent instruments described the easement essentially as it was described above.
In 2019, the plaintiff bought that southeast corner lot, with the easement language contained in his deed. At that time, there were two ways to access the back of the property from the road: the “West Drive,” which was a two-track dirt trail, and the “Gravel Drive,” a gravel driveway. The new owner initially used the West Drive to access his property, but he eventually started using the Gravel Drive.
The defendants argued that the Gravel Drive didn’t exist when the easement was created in 1972, and there was no direct access from it to plaintiff’s property. Plaintiff rebutted the latter argument by showing aerial photographs identifying the driveway as connected to his property in the past and with testimony that gravel was discovered under the grassy field that now covered it.
However, there was no evidence to controvert the argument that it simply didn’t exist in 1972 and therefore couldn’t have been intended to be the easement. While that was the primary reason the court ruled in favor of the defendants, there was plenty of evidence, including the existence of a previous fence, a surveyor’s opinion, and other aerial photographs to convince the trial court that only the West Drive could have been the intended easement.
The driveways were about the same width, and each ran in a North and South direction, although the West Drive took more twists and turns along the way. However, the defendants won at both the trial court and the Michigan Court of Appeals (Graham v. McPhail, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued April 14, 2022 (Docket No. 355892); lv den 510 Mich 967 (2022)). The West Drive was and remained the easement.
It’s easy in retrospect to say there’s no way the original owners could have known in 1972 that another driveway would be installed to cross the front half of the property. But once there were two points of access, the defendants could have revisited the easement to specifically describe the West Drive and eliminate any future confusion. Likewise, the plaintiff could have asked for more specificity before purchasing the property.
If you have questions about an easement on your property, contact the attorneys at Dalton & Tomich to ensure it is enforceable and that its property description is both accurate and effective.
