Title: Bernards v. Link
Citation: 199 Or. 579, 263 P.2d 794
Docket Number: N/A
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: November 25, 1953

Argued on rehearing March 3, 1953.
Affirmed as modified September 24, 1952.
Affirmed on rehearing November 25, 1953.
*580 Albert T. Kemmer, of Portland, argued the cause for appellants. With him on the brief were Allen G. Fletcher, of Portland, and James E. Burdett, of McMinnville.
Eugene E. Marsh, of McMinnville, argued the cause for respondents. On the brief were Marsh, Marsh &amp; Dashney, of McMinnville.
Before BRAND, Chief Justice, and HAY, ROSSMAN and WARNER, Justices.
AFFIRMED AS MODIFIED.
ROSSMAN, J.
This is an appeal by the plaintiffs from a decree which the circuit court entered in favor of the defendants in a suit which prayed that the title of the plaintiffs to a parcel of land described in the complaint be quieted. The parcel, which is approximately 200 acres in extent, is situated in Yamhill county.
The first assignment of error follows:
With the exception of the part which is described in the right-of-way deed, the subject property is a farm. The part described in the right-of-way deed is *581 now a section of a logging road, but prior to 1941 or 1942 it was the roadbed of a logging railroad. The road begins at Carlton, crosses the plaintiffs' farm and runs to Tillamook Gate, a distance of about 15 miles.
Although the answer denies the averment of the complaint which alleges that the plaintiffs are the owners in fee of the 200-acre tract, the defendants concede that the plaintiffs own the entire property, with the exception of the area described in the right-of-way deed. In other words, only the title to the tract described in the right-of-way deed is in issue.
The plaintiffs admit that the right-of-way deed was executed and delivered by the persons who owned the 200-acre parcel at the time of execution and delivery. They also concede the validity of the deed. They, however, claim that the instrument granted only an easement and did not convey the fee. They also claim that the easement was extinguished when the right of way was converted from a railroad to a road. The defendants contend that the deed conveyed to its grantee, Carlton &amp; Coast Railroad Company, the fee and also that if it granted only an easement, the latter has not been extinguished.
August 31, 1910, E.G. and Alice G. Freeman were the owners of the 200-acre tract which we have mentioned. Upon that day they, together with one Mary Geldard, executed and delivered to the Carlton &amp; Coast Railroad Company, a corporation, an instrument which was entitled Right-of-Way Deed and which, in describing its subject matter, employed the following language:
*582 The evidence indicates that the "strip of land 60 feet in width" was about 2700 feet long.
The deed, apart from the description, follows:
After delivery of the deed, the grantee, Carlton &amp; Coast Railroad Company, constructed the railroad and prior to October 1, 1912, it began operations. Seemingly, at that time it was deemed a common carrier. Before long nothing was offered to the road except logs and a little lumber. In Carlton, which is one of the two termini of the road, a large sawmill operates. Likewise, at that point the road had a connection with the Southern Pacific Railroad. The other end of the road, as we have said, is near Tillamook Gate where there stands a large body of timber. The facts just mentioned account for the construction of the road. There is no contention that the grantee bound itself to operate as a common carrier.
*584 By 1940 the Carlton &amp; Coast Railroad Company became involved in financial difficulties, and January 13, 1940, a receiver was appointed for it. June 20, 1941, the receiver sold its assets to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. July 28, 1942, that agency executed and delivered to the defendants a deed which conveyed to them "that certain right of way * * *" together with other items.
Immediately after the defendants received their deed they proceeded to improve the right of way. They operate a mill in Carlton and own timberland near Tillamook Gate. The improvements consisted of placing new stringers upon ten bridges and decking the latter for the accommodation of trucks. Fills were substituted for other bridges. The right of way of the railroad was converted into a road for logging trucks by replacing the ties and rails with a roadbed of gravel. At places the road was widened and at others turnouts were constructed. The defendants have hauled 25,000,000 feet of logs annually since the commencement of their operations and own timberland contiguous to the road upon which stands 150,000,000 feet of timber. They permit others to use the road. From the testimony of one of the defendants the following is taken:
The plaintiffs argue that the deed granted an easement and that the fee remained in the grantors. Upon the other hand, the defendants insist that the deed conveyed the fee simple title. The briefs submitted by the parties cite many decisions.
1. It will be observed from the deed that (1) it was entitled "Right of Way Deed"; (2) a conveyance of *585 the strip was made "for use as a right of way"; (3) the consideration was only $1.00; (4) the conveyance was subject to a condition subsequent which revested all title in the grantors in the event the stipulated condition occurred; (5) the grantees were required to construct for the use of the grantors a cattle crossing; (6) the description included the phrase "over and across and out of the land of the grantors"; (7) the phraseology employed repeatedly the term "strip of land"; (8) the grantee was required to "build and keep in repair a good and substantial fence along each side of the strip".
Various tests have been suggested by the commentators for facilitating a determination whether a deed like the one before us grants an easement or conveys the fee. See, for example, Restatement of the Law, Property, § 471, and Thompson on Real Property, Perm. Ed., §§ 459 to and including 462. We have given attention to all of the suggested tests.
Wason v. Pilz, 31 Or 9, 48 P 701, was a suit to quiet title to a tract 20 by 200 feet in area which was granted to one Schmeer by a deed which read:
The court experienced no difficulty in reaching the conclusion that the deed granted an easement only. It said:
It will be observed that that decision construed the effect of a set of circumstances substantially similar to those now before us. In the case at bar, the dissimilarities are more indicative of an intention to grant an easement than to convey the fee. In view of that decision, we deem it unnecessary to set forth herein a review of the many authorities cited by the parties. We believe that the Wason decision is determinative of the issues under consideration and hold that the deed, which we have quoted, granted an easement. The grantors retained the fee.
The question remains as to whether the easement has been extiguished. The sole basis of the plaintiffs' claim of extinguishment is abandonment. Their brief says:
2. Since the owner of an easement possesses rights in the servient tenement, he may, if he chooses, extinguish them and thereby end the easement.
Powell on Real Property, § 423, says:
*588 According to Restatement of the Law, Property, § 504:
In Comment (a), which follows the statement of that principle it is said:
In Comment (c) it is said:
Illustration 6 to Comment (d) follows:
Thompson on Real Property, Perm. Ed., § 700, says:
Although the evidence is somewhat fragmentary, it does not show that the right of way was ever idle. If it was idle at all, the period could not have been longer than a few months. As soon as the easement was conveyed to the defendants they at once proceeded with their work of converting the logging railroad into a logging thoroughfare. It seems that while that work was progressing logging trucks operating upon the right of way brought logs into Carlton. Accordingly, *591 there can be no basis for a finding of complete nonuser.
The evidence renders it clear that the defendants do not intend to resume use of the right of way for the operation of a logging railroad, but, to the contrary, intend to continue the operation of their logging road. The problem before us, when reduced to its final analysis, is this: Did the easement granted by the right-of-way deed of August 31, 1910, authorize the substitution of the logging road for its predecessor, the logging railroad. The plaintiffs do not claim that the logging road has subjected their property to any additional servitude. To the extent that there is any evidence upon the subject, it indicates that the strip of property involved in this suit is subjected to substantially the same amount of use which was made of it when the logging railroad was in operation.
The use of logging trucks and of logging roads has been an evolutionary development in the Northwest's logging industry. The present generation has seen that industry pass through a succession of cycles into the present one which depends materially upon logging trucks. When the forests were near the sawmills, the logs were brought to the mills by ox teams. Then, as the woodsman's ax made the forests recede from the mills and waterways, many logging railroads were built. Powerful cables and other equipment brought the logs to the outer terminus of the railroad. When the motor industry offered suitable trucks, they began to appear in the woods. They were flexible and could bring the logs to the desired place. With the extension of road building, some operators found it less expensive to run the loaded trucks to the mills or the log dump than to reload the logs upon railroad cars *592 at the outer extremity of the railroad and have the cars complete the journey. With that development, the supremacy of the logging railroad began to yield. Many loggers found it more economical to build logging roads than logging railroads. The latter has virtually no value except as junk when all of the timber has been cut, but a logging road can accommodate the vehicles of farmers as agriculture follows in the wake of the timber faller and eventually may be available as a public highway. Moreover, logging trucks which operate upon privately owned roads escape the taxes and traffic regulations exacted of vehicles which run upon public roads. In short, what has taken place upon the right of way in question has numerous counterparts. Improvements in trucks and the inexorable demand for lower cost of operation have made the logging road the successor to the logging railroad in divers places. Easements, which are one of the numerous instrumentalities by which the day's work is done, would thwart progress instead of facilitating it unless those who have easements can avail themselves of the newer and improved methods in the use of the easements.
It is pertinent to take note of a much quoted observation which was made in Harvey v. Walters, L R, 8 C P 166, 42 L J, C P 107, 28 L T 346. We now quote it:
From the earliest of times the courts, in their construction of instruments which granted easements, have sought to discern and give effect in a practical manner to the purposes of the grant, with the result that the grantee in his enjoyment of the easement has never been restricted to the exact condition which existed when the grant was made. The leading authority is Luttrel's Case, 4 Rep 86, which was decided in 1601. The following, taken from that decision, refers at the beginning to the declaration filed in the case:
The English courts, far from restricting the holding in Luttrel's Case, have expanded it. A recent instance is The Attorney General v. Reynolds (1911) 2 K B 888. In that case, according to a headnote:
We now quote from the decision itself:
We quoted extensively from the foregoing decisions because they state the timetested principles which govern the case at bar. Presumably all who grant easements are familiar with those principles. It remains only to take notice of their practical application in controversies like the present one. Of course, the fundamental rule is to give effect to the meaning of the grant. In ascertaining its meaning, as we have seen, a reasonable interpretation is placed upon its terminology, but reasonable men always look back at what was done before.
3. Although the owner of a right of way over land of another is limited in his use of the right to the terms of the grant, yet it is settled that the grantee may avail himself of modern improvements which will enable him to enjoy more fully the rights which were granted. In other words, in determining the meaning of the grant, it will be inferred, in the absence of express language to the contrary, that the grantee is not restricted to the methods of use which were current at the time of the grant. We shall now take notice of a few of the decisions upon this phase of the controversy.
From Diller v. St. Louis, S. &amp; P.R.R., 304 Ill 373, 136 NE 703, we quote:
*598 In Matteodo v. Capaldi, 48 R I 312, 138 Atl 38, 53 ALR 550, the court said:
From Strycker v. Richardson, 77 Pa Super Ct 252, we take the following:
Diocese of Trenton v. Toman, 74 N J Eq 702, 70 Atl 606, says:
From Swensen v. Marino, 306 Mass 582, 130 ALR 763, 29 NE2d 15, we quote:
Dillon v. Moore, 270 App Div 73, 54 NY Supp2d 833, [reversed on other grounds, 296 NY 561] pointed out:
In McDonnell v. Sheets, 234 Iowa 1148, 15 NW2d 252, 156 ALR 1043, the contested easement was established by a grant reading as follows:
In announcing its interpretation of the words just quoted, the court said:
It will be observed that in all of the decisions from which we just quoted the courts, without citing Luttrel's Case, construed the grants of the easements in substantially the same way as in that early English case. They gave effect to the instrument as the grant of an easement to be used as a way and felt that terms such as "carriage", "wagon or carriage" and "team and wagon" were not intended to restrict the use of the way to vehicles of that kind when better ones became available. They deemed that the words were merely the current way of expressing the type of the easement which the parties had in mind.
We come now to Kansas Electric Power Co. v. Walker, 142 Kan 808, 51 P2d 1002, 102 ALR 387, in *601 which the rights under review concerned a strip of land 20 by 279 feet in Lawrence, Kansas. The plaintiff in the case, the Kansas Electric Power Company, operated over the property, in part, a transportation system. The defendant had executed and delivered to the plaintiff the deeds out of which the plaintiff's rights arose. The transaction concerning the grant was expressed in more than one deed. One of the deeds contained this term: "to build and maintain a good and sufficient fence both sides of the right of way hereby conveyed." Another included this clause: "In the reconstruction of its line of street railway, the grade and alignment of its tracks shall be in accordance with the profile shown by * * *." After the receipt of its deeds, the plaintiff constructed streetcar tracks upon the strip and operated upon them electric streetcars until 1933 when it removed the ties and tracks. Concurrently with their removal the plaintiff put the property in condition for the operation upon it of gasoline-driven motor busses and thereupon operated conveyances of that kind upon the strip. Shortly after it had done so the defendant erected barriers at both ends of the strip, claiming that the plaintiff had abandoned its easement when it discontinued using the property for the operation of a street railway system. At that juncture, the plaintiff instituted suit for an injunction. In the trial court the plaintiff presented testimony showing that busses made greater noise and vibration than streetcars. The trial court entered findings holding that "the change from a streetcar line to a motorbus method of transportation did not constitute an abandonment of the passageway." It granted *602 the injunction for which the plaintiff had prayed. In affirming that decree, the decision under review said:
The above will suffice as a review of analogous cases.
It is our duty to endeavor to discern and give effect to the intention which the grantors and the grantee *603 had when the deed of August 31, 1910, was executed and delivered. In discerning their intention, we must view the language of the deed in substantially the same way as similar instruments have been viewed by the courts since 1601, when Luttrel's Case was decided.
4. The evidence renders it clear that the paramount purpose of the parties was to enable the grantee to bring to Carlton, over the right of way described in the deed, the logs which were being produced near Tillamook Gate. In 1910, as we have pointed out, logging railroads were the only means by which logs were transported long distances. Horse-drawn vehicles, two score of years ago, far outnumbered automobiles, and motor trucks were a strange sight. None of them was capable of carrying logs. "Right of way for a railroad" was the current way of expressing the intention of the parties; that is, to grant a way upon which the grantee could bring logs into Carlton. To have said "right of way for a logging road" would have been meaningless, for such roads did not exist. When the parties entitled the deed "Right of Way Deed" they indicated, in a measure, that it was the way in which they were interested rather than the instrumentality which would operate upon the way. In 1910 Diesel motors were unknown. Today they are found frequently, not only in the motive unit of railroads, but also in motor trucks. Thus, the use of Diesel motors has narrowed the gap which differentiates locomotives from trucks.
When we construe the meaning of the parties, we must endeavor to place ourselves in their position and that cannot be done effectively without retreating in time about two score of years. In granting to the Carlton &amp; Coast Railroad Company an easement upon *604 which it could construct a transportation facility for the chief purpose of hauling logs, we do not believe that the grantor intended to restrict the grantee to the specific type of equipment which was then in use. Had that been the grantor's purpose, the railroad could not have kept its equipment abreast of the developments that have taken place in locomotives and also in logging cars. We know of no reason for believing that the grantor intended to restrict the grantee to the specific type of roadbed which was employed in 1910. The parties included in the deed a condition subsequent whereby the easement would be extinguished if a railroad, equipped to render both passenger and freight service, was not built by October 1, 1912 (O.R. &amp; N. Co. v. McDonald, 58 Or 228, 112 P 413), but they did not bind the grantee to maintain that type of service thereafter. We think that the deed bound the grantee to construct a railroad, but that it permitted the grantee, as long as it used the easement, to keep abreast of the developments of the times and, accordingly, conclude that when it became more economical to convert from a railroad to a logging road, the grantee was at liberty to do so.
The circuit court held that the contested deed conveyed the fee. We do not so construe it. We believe that it did no more than grant an easement, the terms of which we have expressed above.
The cause is remanded to the circuit court with instructions to enter an appropriate decree.
Albert T. Kemmer, of Portland, argued for appellants. With him on the brief was Norman N. Griffith, of Portland.
*605 Willard L. Cushing, of McMinnville, argued for respondents. With him on the brief was Marsh, Marsh &amp; Dashney, of McMinnville.
Before LATOURETTE, Chief Justice, and WARNER, ROSSMAN, LUSK, BRAND and PERRY, Justices.
AFFIRMED ON REHEARING.
ROSSMAN, J.
Due to the two-fold reason that the issues in this appeal are important and that Powers v. Coos Bay Lumber Company, this day decided by us, was appealed at about the same time that our decision in the instant case was announced, we granted the plaintiffs-appellants' petition for a rehearing.
As the principal support for their contention that our previous decision erred, the brief filed by plaintiffs-appellants cites: Tamalpais Land &amp; Water Co. v. N.W. Pacific R. Co., 73 Cal App 2d, 917, 167 P2d 825; Robertson v. Bertha Mineral Co., 128 Va 93, 104 SE 832; Potomac Edison Co. v. Routzahn, 192 Md 449, 65 A2d 580; Mammoth Cave Natl. P. Assn. v. State Highway Commission, 261 Ky 769, 88 SW2d 931; Norton v. Duluth Transfer R., 129 Minn 126, 151 NW 907; Home Real Estate Co. v. Los Angeles Pacific Co., 163 Cal 710, 126 P 972.
The defendants-respondents, in support of our decision, has called our attention to: Dand v. Kingscote, 6 Mees. &amp; W. 174, 151 Eng. Reprint 370; Dowgiel v. Reid, 359 Pa 448, 59 A2d 115; Hodgkins v. Bianchini, 323 Mass 169, 80 NE2d 464; Kain v. Norfolk, 1949, Ch. 163; Newcomen v. Coulson, L.R. 5 Ch. Div. 133.
We have given careful attention to the authorities above mentioned, and the entire case has once more *606 received earnest consideration. We believe, however, that our previous opinion is free from error. In pronouncing that view, we do not discern any necessity for setting forth herein analyses of the above authorities.
We adhere to our former decision.