Opinion ID: 2829230
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Texas Easement Law

Text: An easement is a non-possessory property interest that authorizes its holder to use the property of another for a particular purpose. Marcus Cable Assocs. v. Krohn , 90 S.W.3d 697, 700 (Tex. 2002). “A grant or reservation of an easement in general terms implies a grant of unlimited reasonable use such as is reasonably necessary and convenient and as little burdensome as possible to the servient owner.” Coleman v. Forister , 514 S.W.2d 899, 903 (Tex. 1974). However, the burden on the servient estate is secondary to ensuring that the purpose of the easement is reasonably fulfilled. For example, oil and gas leases convey an implied easement to use the surface as reasonably necessary to fulfill the purpose of the lease. See Sun Oil Co. v. Whitaker , 483 S.W.2d 808, 810 (Tex. 1972) (recognizing that the use easement is not limited by fixed boundaries but rather its purpose and use). The purpose of the easement cannot expand, but under certain circumstances, the geographic location of the easement may. Compare Marcus Cable Assocs. , 90 S.W.3d at 701 (preventing easement holder from expanding purpose of maintaining electric transmission or distribution line to also include cable-television lines regardless of fact that lines could be run on exact same geographic location) with Godfrey v. City of Alton , 12 Ill. 29, (1850) (recognizing that a public easement for a public landing on specific waterway is necessarily “inseparable from the margin of the water, however that may fluctuate”). Easements may be express or implied. Implied easements are defined by the circumstances that create the implication. Ulbricht v. Friedman , 325 S.W.2d 669, 677 (Tex. 1959) (finding an implied easement to use lake water for cattle as they were located upland and without any water source). Express easements, however, must comply with the Statute of Frauds, which requires a description of the easement’s location. Pick v. Bartel , 659 S.W.2d 636, 637 (Tex. 1983). Under certain circumstances, even express easement boundaries may be altered to maintain the purpose of the easement. See Kothmann v. Rothwell , 280 S.W.3d 877, 880 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2009, no pet.) (recognizing movement of drainage tracts to maintain easement’s purpose despite the expansion of original easement location); see also Restatement (Third) of Property (Servitudes) § 4.1 (2000) (providing that an easement “should be interpreted to give effect to the intention of the parties ascertained from the language used in the instrument, or the circumstances surrounding the creation of the servitude, and to carry out the purpose for which it was created”). Rolling beachfront access easements are implied by prescription or continuous use of the dry beach and are defined by their purpose and their dynamic, non-static natural boundaries. To apply static real property concepts to beachfront easements is to presume their destruction. Hurricanes and tropical storms frequently batter Texas’s coast. Avulsive events are not uncommon. The Court’s failure to recognize the rolling easement places a costly and unnecessary burden on the state if it is to preserve our heritage of open beaches. The Court’s conclusion that beachfront easements are dynamic but do not roll defies not only existing law but logic as well. The definition of “roll” is “to impel forward by causing to turn over and over on a surface.” Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (Merriam-Webster Inc. 1983). “Dynamic” means “of or relating to physical force or energy” and “marked by continuous activity or change.” Id . Both terms express movement, but neither term is limited by speed or degree of movement. The Court also illogically distinguishes between shoreline movements by accretion and avulsion. On the one hand, the Court correctly declines to apply the avulsion doctrine to the mean high tide. ___ S.W.3d ___. This means a property owner loses title to land if, after a hurricane or tropical storm, such land falls seaward of the mean high tide. On the other hand, this same hurricane, under the Court’s analysis, requires the state to compensate a property owner for the land that now falls seaward of the vegetation line unless it was already a part of the public beachfront easement. Under the Court’s analysis, the property line may be dynamic but beachfront easements must always remain temporary; the public’s right to the beach can never be established and will never be secure. 1 3 The Court’s distinctions nullify the purpose of rolling easements. I submit (in accord with several other Texas appellate courts that have addressed the issue of rolling easements) that natural movements of the mean high tide and vegetation line, sudden or gradual, re-establish the dynamic boundaries separating public and private ownership of the beach, as well as a pre-existing public beachfront access easement. So long as an easement was established over the dry beach before the avulsive event, it must remain over the new dry beach without the burden of having to re-establish a previously existing easement whose boundaries have naturally shifted. Finally, I submit that once an easement is established, it attaches to the entire tract. Drye v. Eagle Rock Ranch, Inc. , 364 S.W.2d 196, 207 (Tex. 1963). Regardless of how many times the original tract is subdivided, the easement remains. Id . (enforcing pre-existing implied easement across subsequently divided tracts to fulfill its purpose). Private ownership of Galveston Island originated in two land grants issued by the Republic of Texas. First, it arose from the Menard Grant in 1838, which covers the east end of the Island. See Seaway Co. , 375 S.W.2d at 928; City of Galveston v. Menard , 23 Tex. 349, 403–04 (1859). Second, it issued from the Jones and Hall Grant in 1840, which encompasses 18,215 acres, and includes the West Beach, where Severance’s property is located. See Seaway Co. , 375 S.W.2d at 928 (covering “all of Galveston Island except the land covered by the Menard Grant covering the east portion of the Island”). The Court today reasons that because no express easement was made in these original land grants, no public easement can exist over the dry beach. ___ S.W.3d ___. The Court, however, ignores the implied easement arising from the public’s continuous use of the beach for nearly 200 years. The state may have relinquished title in these original grants, but it did not relinquish the public’s right to access, use, and enjoy the beach. See Ratliff, 13 Hous. L. Rev . at 994 (recognizing that until Luttes the public, as well as private landowners, believed beaches to be public domain). By implied prescription, implied dedication, or customary and continuous use, overwhelming evidence exists that Texans have been using the beach for nearly 200 years. See Seaway Co. , 375 S.W.2d at 936 (finding that “owners, beginning with the original ones, have thrown open the beach to public use and it has remained open”); see also supra n. 1. This evidence establishes that public beachfront access easements have been implied across this Texas coastline since statehood. As long as a dry beach exists, so too must beachfront access easements. Any other result deprives the public of its pre-existing, dominant right to unrestricted use and enjoyment of the public beach.