Opinion ID: 4510945
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Existence of an Express Easement

Text: Whether an easement has been created is a question of law that we review de novo. Martin, 99 A.3d at 707. An easement is “an interest in land owned by another person, consisting in the right to use or control the land for a specific limited purpose.” Id. at 708 (internal quotation marks omitted). This interest “runs with the land,” Restatement (Third) of Prop.: Servitudes § 1.1(1) (Am. Law Inst. 2000), which is to say that, subject to notice concerns, it is binding on the servient property where the easement is located notwithstanding a change in ownership or occupancy. See Daro Realty, Inc. v. District of Columbia Zoning Comm’n, 581 A.2d 295, 305 (D.C. 1990) (explaining that the restrictive covenant in that case “ran with the land,” thereby “binding all future owners” to its restrictions). 13 “An express easement, acknowledged in a deed conveying ownership of property, is always preferred under the law,” Martin, 99 A.3d at 708, because of the potential “long-term effects” that these interests have “on land use and value,” Restatement (Third) of Prop.: Servitudes § 2.2 cmt. a. 9 An express easement may be created through a contract or conveyance. Id. § 2.1(1). “There are no particular words of art necessary to create an easement by express grant.” Katkish, 490 A.2d at 628. As with any dispute regarding a written contract, we look first to the plain language of the purportedly interest-creating document, id., and, if it is clear, that ends our inquiry. See Found. for Pres. of Historic Georgetown v. Arnold, 651 A.2d 794, 796 (D.C. 1994) (“Deeds, like contracts, are construed in accordance with the intention of the parties insofar as it can be discerned from the text of the instrument. If a deed is unambiguous, the court’s role is limited to applying the meaning of the words . . . .” (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)). If it is necessary to look beyond the plain language, we examine the “surrounding circumstances” of the document’s execution. Katkish, 490 A.2d at 628; accord, Arnold, 651 A.2d at 796 (explaining that in addition to a document’s plain language, “the parties’ intention is to be ascertained by examining the document in 9 Even so, easements may also be implied or acquired through prescription. See Martin, 99 A.3d at 708–14. 14 light of the circumstances surrounding its execution and, as a final resort, by applying rules of construction”); see also Restatement (Third) of Prop.: Servitudes § 2.2 cmt. a (acknowledging that “[t]o avoid unfairness, . . . courts generally seek to ascertain and give effect to the intentions of the parties, even though imperfectly expressed”). Here, the terms of the 1998 Agreement selling the Odd Fellows’ reversionary interest in the alley expressly provided that “if and when GSA’s property is developed,” an event that would likely result in the Mayer Building’s being hemmed in by other structures, “GSA [would] require that the development be designed so as to accommodate or not to preclude the installation and operation of an exterior restaurant exhaust system servicing the Mayer Building.” The agreement additionally provided that the “[Odd Fellows] retain[] any and all prevailing rights to install and operate a restaurant exhaust system to service the Mayer Building.” Read together, see Bank of Am. N.A. v. District of Columbia, 80 A.3d 650, 678 (D.C. 2013) (“In interpreting a contract, we consider the document as whole . . . .”), this language expressly created an “easement” as this court has defined that term: it established the Odd Fellows’ “interest in land owned by another person”—the land surrounding the Mayer Building, owned by GSA— “consisting in the right to use or control the land . . . for a specific limited 15 purpose”—the Odd Fellows’ right to use that land for an exterior restaurant exhaust system. 10 Martin, 99 A.3d at 708. As “no particular words of art” are “necessary to create an easement by express grant,” it does not matter that the parties did not use the word “easement” in this particular provision of the agreement. Katkish, 490 A.2d at 628. The parties did, however, use that terminology in one of the introductory paragraphs of the 1998 Agreement, explaining that the Odd Fellows would sell its reversionary interest in the Alley Land to GSA “subject to the easements in favor of [the Odd Fellows] as hereinafter described.”11 Moreover, other language in the 1998 10 Notably, this agreement is analogous to one of the illustrations of an easement in the Restatement: “O, the owner of Blackacre and Whiteacre, executed and delivered a deed to A conveying fee simple in Whiteacre, subject to the restriction that no structure shall be built, nor shall any vegetation be permitted to grow, on Whiteacre to a height exceeding 25 feet. The deed states that the purpose of the restriction is to protect the view from Blackacre, and that the restriction is intended to run with the land. A servitude burdening Whiteacre and benefiting Blackacre was created.” Restatement (Third) of Prop.: Servitudes § 2.1 cmt. b, illus. 2. 11 We note that this language refers to “easements,” plural. For this reason, as well as those stated above, we are unpersuaded by Carmine’s/Jemal’s argument that it is significant that the parties, in detailing the Odd Fellows’ specific rights under the agreement, used the word “easement” just once and not with respect to the right to install and operate a restaurant exhaust system. See supra note 4. On these facts, we reject the implication that the failure to use the term “easement” in connection with the right to install and operate an exterior restaurant exhaust (continued…) 16 Agreement supports our understanding of this provision as an easement. Specifically, the 1998 Agreement included language that made clear that it did not impose obligations solely on GSA, but rather that “[t]he covenants and conditions . . . contained” in the Agreement would “be deemed real covenants running with the land,” and would be publicly recorded so as to be enforceable by the Odd Fellows, its “successors[,] and assigns” against all the world. 12 See Rose v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 73 A.3d 1047, 1052 (D.C. 2013) (“[T]he recordation process is designed to protect a property interest against subsequent bona fide purchasers . . . .”). To the extent that the trial court thought greater specificity of language than this was required to create an express easement, it was mistaken, and its reliance on Kayfirst Corp. v. Washington Terminal Co., 813 F. Supp. 67 (D.D.C. 1993), was misplaced. The federal district court’s ruling does not provide much detail about the deed in question, but the defendant’s argument that it created an express easement appears to have been based only on the inclusion of “[t]he words (…continued) system signifies that this obligation was not one that ran with the land, and bound only the parties to the agreement. 12 We note that the trial court in its order and Jemal’s/Carmine’s in their brief to this court omitted discussion of this language. 17 ‘improvements, easements, and appurtenances thereto’ appearing in the deed habendum.” Id. at 72 (finding “no evidence of intent on the part of [the contracting parties] to create the easement in question and no detailed description of any easement”). The mere presence of those words in a deed is far less evidence of an easement than we have here, where the 1998 Agreement identified the dominant and servient properties, the purpose of the easement, and its general location (the exterior of the Mayer Building) and specified that the obligation ran with the land. In addition, the trial court effectively ignored the surrounding circumstances of the execution of the 1998 Agreement, which likewise support an interpretation of the agreement as creating an express easement. The GSA acknowledged the existence of the 1998 Agreement in the 2000 Declaration. The GSA and the Odd Fellows then bound the developer, JPI, to the 1998 Agreement in the 2001 Agreement. Both of these documents reiterated that the commitments contained therein, including the appended 1998 Agreement, would run with the land, and both of these documents were publicly recorded. Additionally, the 2001 Agreement included the Esocoff drawings that depicted a vent shaft positioned outside the north wall of the Mayer Building. See Appendix B. The Odd Fellows approved these plans, confirming that they provided what it had contracted for. JPI subsequently constructed a vent shaft that could accommodate a restaurant exhaust 18 system in that location, and a representative of JPI testified that this vent shaft was built to “keep our end of the bargain.” By looking instead to other factors to conclude that an express easement had not been created by the 1998 Agreement, the trial court erred. The court focused on the absence of “defin[ed] boundaries” for the restaurant exhaust system and nonuse by Odd Fellows. The court derived these factors from our decision in Katkish, but there we merely “agree[d] with the trial court” that, as applied to the facts in that case, those were “the important factors.” Katkish, 490 A.2d at 628. We did not purport to create a definitive test for the creation of express easements, much less one that would override the plain-language understanding of a written contract. See supra. Furthermore, giving dispositive weight to the factors highlighted in Katkish is independently flawed because they do not logically apply to the facts of this case. Regarding the absence of defined boundaries for an exterior exhaust system, it was clear that the system would have to be located along one of the three exterior walls of the Mayer Building not facing the street, and it would have been difficult if not impossible to more precisely locate this system when development of the property surrounding the building was only anticipated, and presumably no design 19 plans existed. Within the context of the 1998 Agreement, the precise boundaries of the exterior restaurant exhaust system were thus a nonmaterial term that did not defeat the creation of an easement. See Carrollsburg v. Anderson, 791 A.2d 54, 61 (D.C. 2002) (“Where an easement in land . . . is granted in general terms, without giving definite location and description of it, the location may be subsequently fixed.” (internal quotation marks omitted)); see also Tauber v. Quan, 938 A.2d 724, 730 (D.C. 2007) (“[A] contract must be sufficiently definite as to its material terms . . . that the promises and performance to be rendered by each party are reasonably certain. . . . [But] all the terms contemplated by [an] agreement need not be fixed with complete and perfect certainty for a contract to have legal efficacy.” (footnote and internal quotation marks omitted)). To conclude otherwise would be tantamount to holding, contrary to our precedent, that parties cannot negotiate sales of property for development in return for easements on that land pre-development. See generally Taylor v. Eureka Inv. Corp., 482 A.2d 354 (D.C. 1984). Regarding the Odd Fellows’ nonuse of the constructed vent shaft for the purpose of a restaurant exhaust system, we disagree that this should have factored into the court’s reasoning at all. Certainly, use may be a factor in clarifying an intention to grant an easement, but where, as here, that intention is clear, nonuse 20 cannot defeat the creation of an express easement. 13 See Brunthaver v. Talty, 31 App. D.C. 134, 137 (D.C. Cir. 1908) (“Mere neglect to enjoy an easement created by grant has no greater effect to extinguish the right of the grantee thereto than to the freehold to which it is appurtenant.”); see also Faulks v. Schrider, 99 F.2d 370, 373 (D.C. Cir. 1938) (explaining that “[o]nce title vests [in an easement acquired by express grant], it[] stays vested until it passes by grant, by descent, by adverse possession or by some operation of law such as escheat or forfeiture; but it is elementary that title does not pass by inaction on the part of the owner”);14 Case v. Morrisette, 475 F.2d 1300, 1304–05, 1313 (D.C. Cir. 1973) (determining an easement to use the subject property as a parking lot existed even though the promised modifications to allow the property to be used for this purpose were never done, id. at 1304–05, because “[e]vents transpiring after activities assertedly creating a property interest have no bearing on the question whether the asserted interest arose,” id. at 1315). 13 Post creation, lack of use and the unauthorized use of an easement by another may result in the loss of an easement through adverse possession, see Smith v. Tippett, 569 A.2d 1186, 1189–90 (D.C. 1990), but no claim of adverse possession has been raised in this case. 14 See M.A.P. v. Ryan, 285 A.2d 310, 312 (D.C. 1971) (holding that decisions by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit published before February 1, 1971, are binding on this court). 21