Opinion ID: 1743379
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: law i. the easement question

Text: An easement may be acquired by express grant, implied grant (implication), or prescription, which presupposes a grant to have existed. Gulf, M. & O.R. Co. v. Tallahatchie Drainage District, 218 Miss. 583, 67 So.2d 528 (1953). No implied easement exists in the instant case. Hutcheson v. Sumrall, 72 So.2d 225 (Miss. 1954).
Dethlefs argues there was an easement by grant from reservations made in deeds to predecessors in title to Beau Maison. Dethlefs asserts that water mains in the July, 1946, warranty deed refers to the underground pipe. As authority, she refers to several dictionaries which define water main as a pipe or conduit for conveying water, as from a reservoir. Webster's. We do not construe water main to be a written easement for the drainage culvert, however. The chancellor disagreed with this interpretation, and it cannot be said that he was manifestly wrong. Water main generally refers to potable water being piped in from some source. The water in a water main is generally under pressure in contrast to water in a sewer main or drainage easement. See National Automobile Insurance Co. v. Industrial Accident Comm., 21 Cal. App.2d 156, 68 P.2d 748, 749 (1937).
Although during oral argument, Dethlefs stated she was not claiming an easement by prescription, the chancellor ruled that no prescriptive easement existed, and the point is preserved in the brief of Dethlefs. Acquisition of easement by prescription occurs when the use is not only adverse, hostile, and exclusive as to others, but it must also be peaceful, uninterrupted, and continuous, under claim of ownership. Berry v. Houston, 195 So.2d 515, 518 (Miss. 1967) (test for adverse possession). However, use by express or implied permission or license, no matter how long continued, cannot ripen into an easement by prescription, since adverse use, as distinguished from permissive use, is lacking. Patterson v. Harris, 239 Miss. 774, 125 So.2d 545 (1960). Whether a use is prescriptive or permissive is ordinarily a question of fact to be determined by the chancellor. See, e.g., Patterson v. Harris, supra ; Peterson v. Corrubia, 21 Ill.2d 525, 173 N.E.2d 499 (1961). In the case before us, there was no evidence as to who installed the underground pipe, when the pipe was installed, and whether or not there was any kind of agreement between the parties involved. Since there was a lack of proof established by Dethlefs, the chancellor was justified in presuming that the use was permissive rather than presuming the use was prescriptive. In Person v. Roane, 218 Miss. 621, 67 So.2d 534 (1953), the proof showed only that the drainage ditch which ran across the defendant's land had been open for over 10 years, but there was no proof establishing the basis on which the ditch had been constructed and used. Therefore the chancellor found that the use was permissive. See also the following drainage cases where proof was lacking and the use was presumed to be permissive: Darr v. Carolina Aluminum Co., 215 N.C. 768, 3 S.E.2d 434 (1939); Daudt v. Steiert, 205 S.W. 222 (Mo. 1918); Cohn v. Williams, 60 Pa. D. & C. 221 (1947). There was sufficient evidence from which the chancellor could infer that initially the culvert was placed on the east lot by permission. It would be difficult to envision a person digging a ditch on another's property and laying a drain without the latter's express permission. That no more than a revocable license was intended is also indicated that there was nothing in writing granting an easement. To change the character of the permit from a license to an easement there would have to be a distinct and positive assertion of a right hostile to the owner of the East lot that such claim was being made. Patterson v. Harris, supra .