Opinion ID: 2976648
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Easement by Implication or Necessity

Text: Plaintiffs-Appellees have the burden of proving the facts that are required to establish an easement by implication. The Pointe, LLC v. Lake Mgmt. Ass’n, 50 S.W.3d 471, 478 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2000). These facts include: (1) A separation of the title; (2) Necessity that, before the separation takes place, the use which gives rise to the easement shall have been so long continued and obvious or manifest as to show that it was meant to be permanent; and (3) Necessity that the easement be essential to the beneficial enjoyment of the land granted or retained. Id. (quotation marks omitted). We are bound, absent clear error, by the district court’s factual determination that there is no evidence that an easement over the access road existed at the time of the partition of the A. Lea & Co. lands in 1888. Burlison, 2006 WL 2546564, at . Therefore, having failed to show clear error, Plaintiffs-Appellees cannot establish that an easement by implication existed as a matter of law. No. 06-6369 Burlison et al. v. United States Page 7 The requirements for the creation of an easement by necessity are similar to those for the creation of an easement by implication. An easement by necessity can be proved by establishing the following facts: 1) [T]he titles to the two tracts in question must have been held by one person; 2) the unity of title must have been severed by a conveyance of one of the tracts; 3) the easement must be necessary in order for the owner of the dominant tenement to use his land with the necessity existing both at the time of the severance of title and the time of exercise of the easement. Cellco, 172 S.W.3d at 592. The Tennessee courts interpret “necessity” to mean “‘reasonably necessary’ for the enjoyment of the dominant tenement.” Fowler, 48 S.W.3d at 741. We believe that under Tennessee law Plaintiffs-Appellees may have an easement by necessity over the Rice and Sullivan tracts. The parties do not dispute that the Rorie tract is landlocked. Extensive evidence in the record exists regarding the necessity of using the field-access road to reach the Rice and Rorie tracts. This necessity exists today and also existed in 1941 when the Rice and Rorie tracts were severed from each other and in 1888 when the Sullivan tract was severed from the Rice and Rorie tracts. The question of whether there existed unity of title, however, poses an obstacle to finding an easement by necessity. Plaintiffs-Appellees argue that unity of title existed because A. Lea & Co. owned all three of the tracts in question—the Sullivan, Rice, and Rorie tracts—and that therefore the severing of the tracts in 1888 and 1941 created easements by necessity. The government argues that unity of title cannot be established because the district judge identified an unresolved question of fact whether a common owner ever held all the lands over which the field-access road traverses. The access road crosses the Slattery lands, which were not owned by A. Lea & Co. and which became part of the Sullivan tract, now owned by the government, at an unknown date after 1888. Thus, a portion of the servient estate, here the Sullivan tract, was not held by the single owner who possessed the rest of the servient estate and the dominant estate. The key question is whether this fact defeats unity of title. The policy rationale behind the doctrine of easement by necessity is that a grantor should be viewed as conveying not only property but also that which is necessary to enjoy the conveyed property. RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF PROP.: SERVITUDES § 2.15 (1998). In addition, public policy favors a legal rule that promotes occupation and use of the land. Id. An easement by necessity, however, is a sub-category within the broader category of easements by implication, which rest on the theory that the sole owner enjoyed a quasi-easement over a portion of his or her land in favor of another portion of the land and that upon severance the easement passes to the grantee. Jones v. Whitaker, 12 Tenn. App. 551, 1931 WL 1509, at  (1930); RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF PROP.: SERVITUDES §§ 8.4-8.5. Therefore, there can be no easement by necessity over the land of strangers. See McBurney v. Glenmary Coal & Coke Co., 118 S.W. 694, 700 (1909) (“There is no privity of contract in the estate between the complainants and defendants, but as to each other they are as strangers, and under well-settled principles there can be no way of necessity or right of easement over the defendant’s land.”); see also Ondis v. City of Woonsocket, 934 A.2d 799, 805 (R.I. 2007) (holding that one cannot hold an easement of necessity against the lands of a stranger); Kullick v. Skyline Homeowners Ass’n, 69 P.3d 225, 230 (Mont. 2003) (same); Riffle v. Worthen, 939 S.W.2d 294, 298 (Ark. 1997) (same); Pencader Assocs., Inc. v. Glasgow Trust, 446 A.2d 1097, 1099 (Del. 1982) (same); Close v. Rensink, 501 P.2d 1383, 1387 (Idaho 1972) (same); Poulos v. Dover Boiler & Plate Fabricators, 76 A.2d 808, 811 (N.J. 1950) (same). In support of their argument that contiguity is not needed to demonstrate an easement by necessity, PlaintiffsAppellees cite the Tennessee Court of Appeals decision in Pevear v. Hunt, 924 S.W.2d 114, 116 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1996), which held that contiguity is not essential to an easement by prescription. Pevear, however, is inapposite. An easement by prescription has no unity-of-title requirement; thus, the logic of Pevear cannot be applied to overcome lack of unity of title over the entire servient estate No. 06-6369 Burlison et al. v. United States Page 8 through which a claimed easement by necessity traverses. We do not need to resolve the dilemma created by question of unity of title today, however, because we need not decide whether an easement by necessity existed.