No. 87-219 

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MONTANA 

1988 

ELMER 0. SAMPSON, 

Plaintiff and Respondent, 

-vsRALPH G. GROOMS and GERTRUDE GROOMS, 

Defendants and Appellants. 

APPEAL FROM: District Court of the Thirteenth Judicial District, 

In and for the County of Yellowstone, 

The Honorable Diane G. Barz, Judge presiding. 

COUNSEL OF RECORD: 

For Appellant: 

Thomas J. Stusek, Billings, Montana 

For Respondent: 

Anderson, Brown, Gerbase, Cebull, Fulton, Harman 

& Ross; John Russell, Billings, Montana 

%AN l9 ~e(8 

Filed: 

Submitted on Briefs: Sept. 10, 1987 

Decided : January 19, 1988 
1 t 

Mr. Justice L. C. Gulbrandson delivered the Opinion of the 

Court. 

This is an appeal of a Yellowstone County District 

Court order enjoining the Grooms from preventing or 

interfering with Sampson's right to use an easement for 

access to his property and for parking vehicles. We affirm 

in part, reverse in part, and remand with instructions to 

enter a permanent injunction consistent with this opinion. 

Sampson and the Grooms are neighbors. The deed to 

Sampson's land (tract "A") includes an easement for a 

twelve-foot wide "private road" over property now owned by 

the Grooms (tract "B"). In 1979, Sampson erected a fence 

around his property that effectively blocked-off his then 

existing driveway. He then began to use the easement (on 

land owned by the Grooms' predecessor in interest) for 

ingress and egress to his property, parking, and storage of 

various vehicles and camper shells. The Grooms have lived on 

tract "C" since 1957 and they purchased tract "B" adjoining 

Sampson's property in 1982. Shortly thereafter, the Grooms 

erected a fence around tract "B" and barricaded the easement. 

The easement remained blocked from July to November of 1982. 
Sampson filed a complaint for injunctive relief and 

damages on October 20, 1982. The Grooms answered with 

counterclaims that (1) they own the land underlying the 

easement in fee simple and (2) that the allowed use of the 

easement does not extend to include a parking lot and vehicle 

storage area. On November 23, 1982, the District Court 

issued a preliminary injunction that ordered the Grooms "to 

immediately remove any blockades or other devices blocking or 

interfering in any way with travel over and use of said 

easement." The District Court subsequently ordered that the 

issues be resolved in a motion for summary judgment. Sampson 

moved for summary judgment and the matter was fully briefed 

by both parties. 

On June 27, 1985, the District Court ruled that an 

easement exists on tract "B" in favor of tract "A". On July 

11, 1985, the Grooms moved to alter or amend the June 27th 

judgment on the grounds that the District Court had not 

resolved the question of whether Sampson's use of the 

easement for parking and storage was permissible. The 

District Court, in a memorandum and order of September 12, 

1985, denied the Grooms' motion and stated that "[the Grooms] 

can determine to institute another action to have adjudicated 

whether the use made by [Sampson] of the easement involved is 

an improper or excessive use . . . " 

Approximately one year later, and after a substitution 

of judges and of counsel for the Grooms, the Grooms moved for 

a preliminary injunction based on their remaining 

counterclaim; i.e., that Sampson's parking and storage of 

vehicles exceeded the permissible use of the easement in 

question. The Grooms subsequently moved for summary judgment 

and the matter was submitted on briefs. After several 

interim temporary orders, the District Court ordered the 

following on April 9, 1987: 
IT IS ORDERED that Defendants [Grooms] 

be, and hereby are enjoined from 

preventing or interfering in any way with 

Plaintiff's [Sampson] use and enjoyment 

of the easement as a driveway customarily 

is used and enjoyed, including but not 

limited to the parking of vehicles for 

continuous reasonable periods of time and 

the short term storage of vehicles. 

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiff 

[Sampson] be, and hereby is, enjoined 

from preventing Defendants' [Grooms] use 

of the easement, upon reasonable advance 

request if Plaintiff's vehicles must be 

moved, for such vehicular access to their 

[the Grooms] backyard as is necessary to 

accomplish purposes which would have been 

valid and reasonable at the time of the 

institution of this cause in 1982. 

This order applies not only to the 

parties but also to members of their 

families, their employees, servants or 

agents, their business and social 

invitees, and any other persons acting 

for or on their behalf, or under their 

direction and control. (Additions ours.) 

The District Court continued the damage issue pending 

this appeal. The Grooms appeal the April 9th order and raise 

eight issues: 

(1) Is the subject easement specific in its terms? If 

so, then parking is not permitted upon such an easement under 

any set of circumstances. 

(2) Assuming, arguendo, that the easement is not 

specific then the court must look to the surrounding 

circumstances, the "extent of the easement" (terms, intent) 

and the "situation of the property" (nature of the parking) 

to construe the reasonable scope of usage of the easement. 
(3) What are the surrounding circumstances regs-rding 

the terms of grant of the subject easement and the intent of 

the original grantor thereof? 

(4) What are the surrounding circumstances as relate 

to the "situation of the property" and the nature of vehicle 

parking and storage being conducted thereon? 

(5) In light of these specific facts, whether or not 

such parking, or any parking, by respondent is an 

interference with the appellants' (owners of the property 

upon which the private road is located) reasonable use of the 

easement? 

(6) Does either party have exclusive easement rights 

in this case? 

(7) Have any prescriptive rights as to the subject 

easement been obtained? 

(8) Inasmuch as injunctive relief is an equitable 

remedy, is respondent equitably entitled to the injunctive 

relief awarded him per the District Court's order of April 9, 

1987? 

Our review on this appeal is limited to the question of 

whether the District Court abused its discretion in granting 

the injunction. Madison Fork Ranch v. L & B Lodge Pole 

Timber Products (1980), 189 Mont. 292, 615 P.2d 900. Neither 

party questions the necessity of an injunction in this case. 

The animosity between the parties is readily apparent to this 

Court as it surely was to the District Court. The District 

Court was presented with feuding neighbors and imminent 

violence. An injunction against both parties was proper 

under the circumstances. 

This Court must also review the scope of the injunction 

in this case to determine whether the District Court abused 

its discretion. The extent of the easement in question is 

governed by 5 70-17-106, MCA, which states: 
use of the easement for parking and storage of vehicles 

indicates intent that such use "is reasonable . . . " 

Sampson argues that his parking and storage of vehicles 

is reasonable in this case. The District Court recognized, 

however, that the easement is not wide enough to permit 

simultaneous parking and storage of vehicles by both Sampson 

and the Grooms. The District Court ordered exclusive 

easement rights of parking and storage to Sampson on land 

owned by the Grooms. Continuous parking and storage of 

vehicles by Sampson renders the easement unavailable for 

immediate use by anyone else for other purposes such as 

ingress and egress to and from the Grooms' property (tract 

"C") . The District Court attempted to address this problem 

with an order that Sampson move his vehicles from the 

easement "upon reasonable advance request" from the Grooms. 

We recognize that such an exclusive right to park and 

store vehicles "would amount almost to a conveyance of the 

fee." Titeca, 634 P.2d at 1159. In Titeca, we noted that 

" [tlhe mere use of the words 'private road' is not a clear 

indication of an intent to create an 'exclusive' easement. " 

Titeca at 1159. Nor can permissive use of a private road for 

parking and storage justify the District Court's conclusion 

that such use of the easement was intended. Such an expanded 

use of the easement in question could only be obtained by 

prescription under the circumstances of this case and only 

then to the extent of the "nature of the enjoyment by which 

it was acquired." Section 70-17-106, MCA. 

Sampson did not use the easement to the exclusion of 

the Grooms. Ralph Grooms, when deposed, stated that he used 

tract "B" on occasion to park his vehicles. Grooms also used 

the easement for access to his backyard. To establish a 

prescriptive right to park and store vehicles on the 

easement, Sampson would have to prove "open, notorious, 
exclusive, adverse, continuous, and unmolested use of the 

servient tenement" for five years. Garrett v. Jackson 

(1979), 183 Mont. 505, 508, 600 P.2d 1177, 1179. Sampson's 

use under these facts was clearly permissive and 

nonexclusive. 

At the time of the original grant, Sampson's 

predecessors in interest purchased both tract "A" and tract 

"G" with the accompanying easement. It appears that the 

intent of the grant was for tracts "A" and "G" to share equal 

rights of ingress and egress over a twelve-foot wide section 

of tract "B". The District Court's April 9, 1987, order 

allows Sampson to use the easement in a manner not 

contemplated at the time of the easement's creation. 

Vehicles and other items parked and stored for protracted 

periods of time render the private road impassable. 

Requiring the servient tenement, the Grooms, to request 

Sampson to clear the easement upon reasonable advance notice 

I1burden[s] the servient estate to a greater extent than was 

contemplated at the time of the grant." Titeca, at 1159. 

Accordingly, parking and storage of vehicles is an 

unreasonable burden upon the servient estate under the 

circumstances of this case. 

We hold that the District Court abused its discretion 

by allowing Sampson to park and store vehicles on the 

easement and by requiring the Grooms to request removal of 

those vehicles for access to their backyard. In so holding, 

we are not unmindful of the dilemma this case presented to 

the District Court. The law requires that Sampson's use of 

the easement not unreasonably burden the servient tenement. 

The law also requires that the Grooms "make use of the land 

in any lawful manner that [they choose], which use is not 

inconsistent with and does not interfere with the use and 

right reserved to the dominant tenement or estate." City of 
Missoula v. Mix (1950), 123 Mont. 365, 372, 214 P.2d 212, 

We affirm the District Court's injunctions against both 

parties. The scope of the injunctions, however, requires 

reversal. The subject easement must be used only for 

purposes that do not unreasonably burden the servient 

tenement and which do not interfere with the use and right 

reserved to the dominant tenement. Accordingly, the case is 

remanded to the District Court with directions to enter the 

following permanent injunction as against both parties: 

IT IS ORDERED that both the Plaintiff and 

Defendants be I and hereby are, 

permanently enjoined from use and 

enjoyment of the easement for long term 

parking and storage of vehicles or any 

other use as would unreasonably interfere 

with the use and enjoyment of the 

easement as a private road for ingress 

and egress to tracts "A" and "C", 

provided, however, that both parties may 

use the easement for reasonable and 

necessary short term parking of vehicles 

to load and unload cargo or passengers. 

Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded with 

instructions.