Opinion ID: 2831440
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Necessity Easement

Text: “Anyone who grants a thing to someone is understood to grant that without which the thing cannot . . . exist.” James W. Simonton, Ways by Necessity, 25 COLUM . L. REV . 571, 572 (1925). With similar emphasis on this ancient maxim, we recognized in 1867 that a necessity easement results when a grantor, in conveying or retaining a parcel of land, fails to expressly provide for a means of accessing the land. Alley v. Carleton, 29 Tex. 74, 78 (1867). When confronted with such a scenario, courts will imply a roadway easement to facilitate continued productive use of the landlocked parcel, rather than rigidly restrict access. Id. To successfully assert a necessity easement, the party claiming the easement must demonstrate: (1) unity of ownership of the alleged dominant and servient estates prior to severance; (2) the claimed access is a necessity and not a mere convenience; and (3) the necessity existed at the time the two estates were severed. Koonce, 663 S.W.2d at 452. As this analysis makes clear, a party seeking a necessity easement must prove both a historical necessity (that the way was necessary at the time of severance) and a continuing, present necessity for the way in question. Id. Once an easement by necessity arises, it continues until “the necessity terminates.” Bains, 182 S.W.2d at 399 (“[A] way of necessity is a temporary right, which arises from the exigencies of the case and ceases when the necessity terminates.”); see also Alley, 29 Tex. at 76 (providing “if the necessity for its use ceases, the right also ceases”). The temporary nature of a necessity easement is thus consistent with the underlying rationale; that is, providing a means of roadway access to land only so long as no 7 other roadway access exists. Alley, 29 Tex. at 78 (“A way of necessity, however, must be more than one of convenience, for if the owner of the land can use another way, he cannot claim by implication to pass over that of another to get to his own.”). Accordingly, it is no surprise that the balance of our jurisprudence on necessity easements focuses on roadway access to landlocked, previously unified parcels. See Koonce, 663 S.W.2d at 452 (assessing a roadway easement by the standard of an easement by necessity); Duff v. Matthews, 311 S.W.2d 637, 641 (Tex. 1958) (same); Othen v. Rosier, 226 S.W.2d 622, 626 (Tex. 1950) (same); Bains, 182 S.W.2d at 399 (same); Alley, 29 Tex. at 78 (same).