Opinion ID: 2340759
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the 18 acre tract and easements.

Text: These three tracts, i.e., the Meades' 131.045 acre tract and the Ginns' 18 acre and 78.181 acre tracts, were all originally part of an 800 acre farm sold by W.M. Wheeler on December 30, 1975, to Ersel Verdell Meade and Sherry R. Meade, his wife, Richard Gale Meade (Appellant) and Linda Louise Meade, his then wife, Kenneth Dale Meade and Diane Ellen Meade, his wife, Lanny Ray Meade and Jill Ellen Meade, his wife, Oliver G. Berry, single, and Tate A. Meade and Opha Meade, his wife, referred to collectively as the Meade families. Each separate family unit owned an undivided 1/6th interest in the entire 800 acres. The first sell-off from the original 800 acres occurred on December 15, 1977, when the Meade families, including Appellant, Richard Meade, deeded the 18-acre tract now owned by the Ginns to Licking Pork, Inc. The remainder of the original 800 acres completely surrounded this almost square-shaped tract, on which Licking Pork subsequently established a hog farm. The 18 acre tract straddled an old thirty-foot-wide roadway that ran from the southern portion of the 800 acre tract, now part of the 131.045 acre tract owned by Richard and Earnestine Meade, to its northern boundary with Highway 1123. Although the December 15, 1977, deed from the Meade families to Licking Pork, Inc., is not found in this record, the parties agree that the deed reserved an easement in favor of the grantors herein [Meade families], their heirs and assigns, for the purpose of crossing said 18 acre tract from its entrance road. Also on December 15, 1977, the Meade families, including Appellant Richard Meade, entered into a written agreement with Licking Pork, Inc., that provided, inter alia: [W]hereas, Grantors have this date sold and conveyed to Grantee an eighteen acre portion of Grantors' farm located on Kentucky Highway No. 1123 in Fleming County, Kentucky; and Whereas, the parties desire to agree as to appurtenant rights of access, utility easements, water easement, house location, fencing, and other related matters, before surveys have been completed; NOW THEREFORE, in further consideration of the $20,000 paid this date by Grantee unto Grantor, it is hereby agreed as follows: ... (2) Entrance Road and Utility Easement. Grantors will upon demand convey by Grantee's survey description an unencumbered marketable easement by general warranty deed for purposes of free ingress and egress and utility services between Kentucky Highway No. 1123 and said eighteen acre tract this date conveyed, said easement to be fifty feet wide and located as determined by Grantee in a reasonably direct route from highway to Grantee's said property. Grantee shall construct and maintain a roadway on said easement, and may construct, repair and replace utility services over, under and through said easement, as well as grant easements within said roadway to utilities for servicing Grantee's said property, provided that Grantors' abutting property is not thereby affected or encumbered. Grantors, their heirs and assigns, may use said roadway in common with Grantee and may cross over said easement between their abutting fields, provided that Grantors may not obstruct or otherwise interfere with Grantee's use of said easement as aforesaid. (Emphasis added.) The agreement also required the Meade families to convey, on demand, one additional acre for a residential lot, another lot on the Licking River for construction of a water pumping station, and a water line easement from the pumping station to the 18 acre tract. The agreement was filed of record in Deed Book 145, page 274, in the office of the Fleming County Clerk. On September 1, 1978, citing paragraph 2 of Agreement recorded in Fleming County Deed Book 145, page 274, and in consideration of said Agreement, the Meade families, including Appellant Richard Meade, deeded to Licking Pork, Inc., [a] certain fifty foot easement connecting Kentucky Highway No. 1123 with Tract A [the 18 acre tract], the centerline of which is described as [described therein by metes and bounds]. The deed also conveyed a one acre residential lot, a lot on the Licking River for a water pumping station, and a water line easement from the pumping station to the 18 acre tract. The deed contained the following recitation: Reference is hereby made to said Agreement dated 15 December 1977 and recorded in Fleming County Deed Book 145, page 274 for the rights and duties of the parties with respect to the above described property and easements. (Emphasis added.) Thus, the documents executed by the Meade families and Licking Pork, Inc., not only created a fifty-foot easement across the remainder of the Meade families' 800 acre tract in favor of Licking Pork, but also reserved to the Meade families an easement over the thirty-foot roadway across Licking Pork's 18 acre tract and the right to use the fifty-foot easement in common with Grantee. Since owners of a servient tenement automatically retain the right to use their own property so long as their use does not interfere with the use of the dominant tenement, Holbrook v. Hammond, 302 Ky. 10, 192 S.W.2d 746, 748 (1946) (It is not necessary that the grantor should expressly reserve any right which he may exercise consistently with a fair enjoyment of the grant. Such rights remain with him, because they are not granted.), the Meade families would have retained the right to use the fifty-foot roadway even without the agreement. The parties, therefore, must have intended to create a transferable reciprocal or cross easement in favor of the Meade families by their additional agreement vesting in the grantors, their heirs and assigns the right to use the fifty-foot roadway in common with Grantee. Cf. Furlow v. Sturgeon, Ky., 436 S.W.2d 485, 486 (1968) (contracts must be construed from the standpoint of the parties, and the terms employed must be given effect from that standpoint). Reciprocal or cross easements are created by contract between adjacent landowners for the common use of property to enhance the usefulness and value of both properties, usually with respect to ingress and egress. The result is the creation of easements appurtenant to both properties enforceable by subsequent grantors of each original owner. Rosenbloom v. Grossman, 351 S.W.2d 735, 738 (Mo.1961); 25 Am.Jur.2d Easements and Licenses in Real Property § 21 (1996); cf. Romar Dev. Co., Inc. v. Gulf View Mgmt. Corp., 644 So.2d 462, 465 (Ala.1994) ([T]he usual case presents the `reciprocal easement' situation, where adjacent landowners contract for the common use of some property or area....). Our predecessor court recognized the concepts of both reciprocal and cross easements. There can be no dispute of the easement claimed being annexed to the lot conveyed by Graham, Howarth & Graham to Newton, and consequently following it into the hands of appellant, for it was not only in express terms thereby granted, but in the subsequent deed to Atchinson specially reserved, in place or consideration of which the Newton lot was charged with a reciprocal easement ever since enjoyed. Hobson v. Cartwright, 93 Ky. 368, 20 S.W. 281, 281 (1892) (agreement establishing set-back lines and building heights). [T]he decided weight of authority establishes the position that an agreement under the hands and seals of such parties containing the usual covenants and stipulations will, when duly delivered and acted upon, create cross-easements in the respective owners of adjacent lots with which the covenants in the agreement will run, so as to bind all persons succeeding to the estates to which such easements are pertinent. Ferguson v. Worrall, 125 Ky. 618, 101 S.W. 966, 968 (1907) (agreement establishing joint driveway) (quoting Jones on Easements § 668). To summarize, the effect of the deed and agreement executed on December 15, 1977, and the subsequent deed executed on September 1, 1978, with respect to the easements was (1) to grant Licking Pork, Inc., an easement across the Meade families' property on which it could construct a fifty-foot roadway to provide access to the 18 acre tract, and (2) to reserve to the Meade families a thirty-foot easement across the 18 acre tract and a reciprocal right to use the fifty-foot roadway as access to the remaining portions of their property. On June 21, 1984, the master commissioner of Fleming County deeded Licking Pork's interest in the 18 acre tract to A.J. DeCoster. On October 23, 1998, DeCoster and his wife conveyed the same tract to Appellees, Michael and Jennifer Ginn. Both deeds recite the reservation by the Meade families of the thirty-foot easement for the purpose of crossing said eighteen-acre tract from its entrance road (as located pursuant to the Agreement between the parties dated 15 December 1977 and recorded in Fleming County Deed Book 145, page 174) to former Grantors' [Meade families'] retained land on the River side of said eighteen-acre tract. In addition to the 18 acre tract, both deeds also conveyed the one acre residential tract, the pumping station lot, the water line easement, and the fifty-foot easement connecting the 18 acre tract with Highway 1123. Although the deed from DeCoster to Ginn did not mention the December 15, 1977, agreement, the stated source of title, i.e., the commissioner's deed to DeCoster, stated as its source of title for the fifty-foot easement the deed from the Meade families to Licking Pork, Inc., which, as noted supra, specifically referred to paragraph 2 of the agreement which gave the Meade families and their heirs and assigns the right to use the easement in common with Grantee. By three separate deeds, all dated March 26, 1983, the Meade families sold off the remainder of the original 800 acre farm. The first deed conveyed to Ersel and Sherry Meade the 5/6ths interest of the other families in a 128.395 acre tract not involved in this lawsuit. (Actually, it is unclear from the record whether this tract was part of the original 800 acre farm or whether it was a separate farm owned by the Meade families.)