Opinion ID: 2257788
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Ownership of a Piece of the Original Sawmill Property

Text: [¶ 16] Dorey next claims flowage rights by virtue of his ownership of lot 9-4, which encompasses a piece of the original sawmill property to which the flowage rights were originally appurtenant. He has, however, offered no law to support his contention that Mill Act rights should be considered appurtenant to lot 9-4 merely because a portion of it was once part of a larger parcel that encompassed the sawmill property. Lot 9-4 is not the site of either the outlet dam or the sawmill, which together comprise the manufacturing plant to which the flowage rights are appurtenant. See Opinions of the Justices, 118 Me. at 507, 106 A. at 869. Because we construe the Act's provisions strictly, we conclude that only the owners of the lots actually containing the dam and the sawmill may be allowed to exercise flowage rights relative to the dam and thus be held liable for the resulting statutory damages. See Stevens, 76 Me. at 200; Morton v. Franklin Co., 62 Me. 455, 456 (1873); Nelson, 21 Me. at 232. Dorey's reliance upon the May 27, 1980 deed is therefore misplaced.