Opinion ID: 1748512
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Implied Easements Appurtenant to the Land: Easements for Pleasure and Recreation

Text: There were no easements granted in the deeds to the lot owners. As another exception to the statutes set out above, easements are sometimes necessarily implied. Those will be here considered. Before considering whether easements for recreation and pleasure will be implied into the deeds by the court, it will be helpful to review briefly the course of acceptable easements appurtenant expressly granted in writing, with particular reference to easements for pleasure and recreation. At common law, it was considered that a written easement to wander about over the land of another was invalid. It was referred to as a jus spatiandi, which was a contraction of a part of a Latin phrase (taken from the Roman law), which when translated was: A praedial servitude cannot be created so as to give me permission to pick an apple, to wander about or to picnic on another's land. [8] Only as late as 1955, the English Court of Appeals upheld a written easement in a park, a relatively small square, surrounded on three sides by homeowners and on the fourth side by the sea. The deed to the lot owners contained the written easements to use the park, subject to a fee for upkeep. It was held that the area was subject to easements appurtenant to the lot owners, the jus spatiandi notwithstanding. The park was likened to a garden which traditionally (as an appurtenance) adjoined to a residence. The area and all its uses were well defined. In re Ellenborough Park, 3 All E.R. 667 (1955). Thus, in England it was stated that easements, even in writing, were traditionally limited to six categories: air, light, ways or roads, support, water, and fences. [9] Probably because of this restricted view, the legislatures in several states, including California, Montana, Oklahoma, North Dakota and South Dakota, enacted statutes to permit servitudes or easements for rights of pasture, fishing, hunting, conducting lawful sports, and similar purposes. [10] Texas has no similar statute. Apparently the policy of those jurisdictions limiting easements appurtenant was that the land should be left free for development and not burdened with uses which were less important to the economic development of the community. This Court does not take the view that the types of permissible easements have been, or are, limited to the prescribed few listed above. Assuming that this Court will uphold express written easements appurtenant to land for pleasure and recreational purposes, this historical development influences our thinking on whether such easements will be implied by the courts under circumstances such as are here presented in the absence of a written agreement or deed of the parties. It is stated in 17A Am.Jur. 653, § 41, that: Such doctrine of implied easements extends no further than to servitudes of a permanent nature well known or plainly apparent    evidently necessary to the convenient enjoyment of the property to which they belong and not for the purpose of pleasure.  [11] A similar statement as to easements appurtenant by implication is found in Thompson: That the right or privilege is merely convenient is not sufficient, but it must be necessary and essential to the proper enjoyment of the estate granted, and not for the purpose of mere pleasure. 1 Thompson, Real Property (Perm. ed.) 643, § 394. For there to be an easement appurtenant, either expressed in writing or implied, there must be a dominant estate and a servient estate. The easement attaches to the land of the dominant estate and not merely for the convenience of the owner thereof independent of the use of his land. The servient estate is subject to the use of the dominant estate to the extent of the easement granted or reserved. It generally takes the form of a negative easement: the owner of the servient estate simply may not interfere with the right of the owner of the dominant estate to use the servient estate for the purpose of the easement. Pokorny v. Yudin, 188 S.W.2d 185 (Tex.Civ.App.1945, no writ). This concept is in contrast to an easement in gross which attaches to an individual and is not dependent upon the existence of a dominant estate in land. Alley v. Carleton, 29 Tex. 74 (1867). If an owner used one part of his land for the benefit of another portion of his own land, the portion served had a quasi-dominant tenement. The portion which was used was subject to a quasi-servient tenement. The doctrine of implied easement appurtenant developed when the owner, under those circumstances, sold the portion of his land which had had the use of the other portionas for drainage, support, way, or water. If use of the servient tract was apparent, continuous, and necessary to the use of the dominant land sold, the courts presumed that the necessary use of the servient tract passed by implication to the purchaser. [12] The law read into the instrument that which both grantor and grantee must have intended had they both given the obvious facts of the transaction proper consideration. Mitchell v. Castellaw, 151 Tex. 56, 246 S.W.2d 163, at 167 (1952). For several reasons, including the Statutes of Frauds and Conveyances and the recording statutes, the courts have been careful in the engrafting of easements by implication. The requirements have become fairly standardized. [13] They may be summarized as follows: 1. The use must be apparent, in existence at the time of the grant (as the quasi-servient tenement mentioned above). For example, a road into or out of the granted area, a stairway to a second-story dwelling, a party wall, a drain or aqueduct. 2. Its use must have been continuous  so that the parties must have intended that its use pass by the grant. In some instances the view is taken that the use is continuous if no further act of man is necessary to its continuous exercise; i. e., neither the grantor nor anyone for him will have to perform any act in order that the grantee may obtain the benefit of the alleged easement. Included within the concept of continuous is that degree of conspicuousness and apparentness that indicates permanency. 3. Its use must be necessary to the use of the dominant estate. For example: a water or sewer line into the granted estate; a drain from the land; a way to and from the estate granted; light and air; lateral support; and, it has been held in many instances, water. Ulbricht v. Friedsam, supra, Footnote 11. The degree of necessity will be discussed later herein. In the great majority of the cases in which easements have been implied, the necessity has been economic or physical necessity for the use of the land rather than some merely desirable right for the occupant of the land. The Texas authorities are in accord. In Howell v. Estes, 71 Tex. 690, 12 S.W. 62 (1888), Howell owned two adjoining business lots on which were two buildings with a common wall. The stairway for both was in one of the buildings. The plaintiff acquired from Howell one of the buildings, the one without a stairway. The defendant, who acquired the other building, denied the plaintiff and his tenants the use of the stair. It was held that the use of the stair on defendant's property had passed by necessary implication as an easement appurtenant to plaintiff's building. Reviewing the authorities on the qualities necessary for an implied easement appurtenant, the Court found these essential: that the use be apparent, open, permanent in character, and continuous. A `discontinuous' easement is said to be one which requires the act of man to complete it. And it must be necessary to the use of the dominant estate. Though the plaintiff, at some expense, could have built an outside stairway, and to this extent the stair in the servient building was not strictly necessary, sufficient necessity was shown to support the easement. [14] The degree of necessity required was deliberately reviewed by this Court in Mitchell v. Castellaw, 151 Tex. 56, 246 S.W.2d 163 (1952). The greater portion of that opinion dealt with an implied reservation of an easement rather than an implied grant. A stricter rule applies to an implied reservation. The Court there weighed the requirement of reasonably necessary to the use of the dominant estate against strict necessity. In adopting the strict necessity requirement as to implied reservations this Court said:    the whole theory of implied easements is somewhat in derogation of the registration statutes and indeed the Statute of Frauds   . The Court reasoned that strict necessity would be easier to apply. As to implied grants, the Court said,    even in the case of an implied grant, courts do not lightly hold the grantor to convey more than stated in his deed   . One other problem is presented here. It may be treated as part of the requirement of apparentness set out above. For the easement appurtenant to be implied, some degree of definiteness in the scope or extent of the interest is essential to its recognition as an interest in land or a property interest. The Restatement of Property gives an example of definiteness and indefiniteness: An example of a privilege of the first sort [definite] is the right of way with prescribed boundaries, of the second [indefinite], the privilege of strolling at pleasure through a field   . When a use has not the degree of definiteness necessary to the creation of an easement, the privilege to make it can be nothing more than a license. 5 Restatement, Property 2910, § 450. Easements for pleasure and recreation over a 1000-acre ranch including the right to study nature, picnic, hike, ride horseback, camp out, bird watch and other similar activities fall within the general category of novelty easements. They present problems even when they are created in writing. [15] Supervision and enforcement by a court of an implied easement of this nature are difficult. We now apply these principles of this case. There had been no continuous, apparent, obvious, or permanent use of a portion of the ranch for the necessary use of another portion thereof. There existed no quasi-servient or dominant estates at the time of the sales. Nor was there a definiteness or certainty in the servitudes sought to be established on the servient estate. This fact is particularly impressive in view of the historic reluctance of the common law courts to recognize easements to wander about land and to use it for pleasure and recreational purposes even when there were written grants. It is our view that for these reasons, we may not imply easements appurtenant in favor of the lots in the subdivision over the 1000-acre ranch. It is therefore unnecessary to decide whether the doctrine of strict necessity for an implied reservation, applied by this Court in Mitchell v. Castellaw, 151 Tex. 56, 246 S.W.2d 163 (1952), applies also to implied grants of easements appurtenant. We therefore hold that the lot owners did not acquire easements appurtenant over the ranch by implication in their deeds.