Opinion ID: 1937048
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Scope of the Easement

Text: The use to which the County proposes to put the land in question is relevant to whether it has an intention to abandon. If it were to be found that the contemplated use were within the scope of the easement this could be evidence of a lack of intention to abandon. If the contemplated use were not within the scope of the easement, then unless it be found that some other permitted use is being made, it is possible that an intention to abandon might be found, although if the contemplated use is found not to be within the scope of the easement this would not necessarily establish an intention to abandon. Whether the mini-park is a use within the scope of the easement is an important factor for another reason. If it is within that scope, then the parties are in agreement that $1.00 is the value of the fee subject to the easement the County claims to hold. If it is not within the scope of the easement, then the value of the fee may be more than $1.00 even if an intention to abandon is not found. We have previously referred to D.C. Transit Systems v. S.R.C., 259 Md. 675. There the transit company in its effort to establish that it had not abandoned its easement proffered to prove that it had made agreements for use of part of the land with various utilities for the installation of their lines or pipes. Id. at 689. We said, It is clear that under the holdings of our predecessors the Transit Company had no right to enter into these agreements, citing and quoting from Sapp v. Northern C.R.R., 51 Md. 115, 124-25 (1879), and Amer. Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Pearce, 71 Md. 535, 548, 18 A. 910 (1889). We cited also Potomac Edison Co. v. Routzahn, 192 Md. 449, 460, 65 A.2d 580 (1949); Telephone Co. v. Tyson, 160 Md. 298, 301, 153 A. 271 (1931); and Potomac Elec. Power Co. v. Wall, 153 Md. 229, 233, 137 A. 899 (1927). In Sapp there was a contention that a prescriptive right to an easement for a private footway had been established alongside of or between the tracks of a railroad corporation. The Court pointed out that in order to establish a prescriptive right there must be a claim under or through someone who had a right to grant or create the easement claimed. It said it was an almost self-evident proposition [t]hat a railroad corporation has no power or right to grant an easement like this, of footways for persons to walk along their tracks or by the side of them, adding that [i]t is obvious that if such power existed and were exercised it would be subversive of the very purposes for which railroad charters are granted. Id. 51 Md. 124-25 (emphasis in original). In Pearce the question before the Court was whether telegraph and telephone lines might be created on a railroad right-of-way for the purpose of transmission of messages other than for railroad purposes. The Court referred to the doctrine recogniz[ing] the right of the land-owner to compensation for every additional burden cast upon the land outside the scope of the original easement, and that whether a given structure creates an additional servitude is a question of fact, depending on the circumstances of each case, to be determined by the tribunal having jurisdiction to try the same, and before which it is tried. Id. 71 Md. at 543. In this context it said: Casting an additional burden, for such a purpose, on land already subject to an easement, is just as much taking it for public use, as was the taking of it for the original easement.... [ Id. at 548.] Certain uses of streets or highways have been held to create additional burdens while others do not. For instance, in Poole v. Falls Road Ry., 88 Md. 533, 41 A. 1069 (1898), and Peddicord v. Baltimore C. & E.M.R.R., 34 Md. 463 (1871), the laying of rails for a street railway and a horse passenger railway were held to be within the scope of the easement previously granted. In Poole the Court observed: The laying of rails on a street and the running of cars thereon for the accommodation of persons desiring to use the street, is not a new use, because it is only a new mode of using the street for the purposes for which it was originally taken. Peddicord v. Railway Co., 34 Md. 463. The test therefore of what is a new use would seem to be found not necessarily in the nature of the structure nor in the number of the tracks but in the use itself; whether it is promotive of the objects and purposes for which the easement in the public was acquired. [ Id. 88 Md. at 537.] However, when an attempt was made to place railroad tracks in the bed of a Baltimore street the Court said in Phipps v. Western Md. R.R., 66 Md. 319, 323, 7 A. 556 (1887), [A] new burden was imposed on [the property owners'] estate, above and beyond the original servitude to which it was subjected at the time the street was opened. The property was put to a use entirely different from that required by the public in the case of a street. As to permitted and nonpermitted uses also see 3 H. Tiffany, The Law of Real Property § 926 at 601-02 (3d ed. B. Jones 1939). This author comments, [I]f the land within the highway limits is afterwards used for a purpose, even though of a public nature, which is not within the scope of the highway use for which the land was dedicated or appropriated, it is considered that the land is subjected to an additional burden or `servitude,' entitling the owner to compensation as for a new taking of property. Id. at 600-01. To similar effect see 2 American Law of Property § 9.52 (1952). The rights acquired in a highway easement were set forth by this Court in C. & P. Tel. Co. v. Board of Forestry, 125 Md. 666, 94 A. 322 (1915): Subject to qualification under special conditions, the general rule is that in the case of an ordinary highway the public acquires only an easement of passage and its incidents, and the owner of the soil subject to this servitude is entitled, except so far as required for highway purposes, to the earth, timber and grass growing thereon, and to all minerals, quarries and springs below the surface. Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. v. Mackenzie, 74 Md. [36,] 47. [ Id. at 672-73.] As it is put in Ches. & P'T'M'C' Tel. Co. v. Mackenzie, 74 Md. 36, 47, 21 A. 690 (1891), [I]n the case of an ordinary road or highway in the country ... all the public acquires is the easement of passage and its incidents.... However, our cases do recognize that there is a difference in this regard between an easement for a rural highway and one for an ordinary street in a town, there being the right to place such utilities as gas or water beneath a street in towns. Frederick Gas Co. v. Abrams, 264 Md. 135, 146, 286 A.2d 766 (1972); Green v. Wash. Sub. San. Comm'n, 259 Md. 206, 219-20, 269 A.2d 815 (1970); Turner v. Wash. Sanitary Comm., 221 Md. 494, 499, 158 A.2d 125 (1960); and Water Co. v. Dubreuil, 105 Md. 424, 432, 66 A. 439 (1907). The proposed use to be made of the land in question must be evaluated in the light of these principles.