Opinion ID: 2257788
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Dorey's Claims

Text: [¶ 13] The flowage rights at issue here came into existence pursuant to the Mill Act when Benjamin Knapp and Joseph Foster built the sawmill and dam at the outlet of Foster Pond in 1839. It is undisputed that the sawmill is no longer operational and that Dorey does not own the land on which the dam or sawmill sit. Notwithstanding the plain language of the Act limiting its benefits to any person erecting or maintaining a mill on his own land[,] however, Dorey claims present rights under the Act by virtue of three sources: (1) his May 28, 1980 purchase of flowage rights separate from any transfer of real property, (2) his May 27, 1980 purchase of a distant portion of the original sawmill property, and (3) his ownership in fee of the original gristmill property, which he alleges benefits from an 1849 reservation of flowage rights relative to the original sawmill property.
[¶ 14] Dorey cites Ring v. Walker for the proposition that flowage rights are a unique type of easement appurtenant that can be transferred apart from the mill site to which they are appurtenant and made newly appurtenant to a downstream mill site. Contrary to Dorey's argument, however, Ring v. Walker did not directly address flowage rights or their transfer. Ring, rather, concerned two express reservations, made in the context of conveyances, of the rights to build, maintain, and use a log sluice through an upstream mill site for the benefit of certain downstream mill sites. See Ring, 87 Me. at 555-57, 33 A. at 175-76. This Court explicitly declined to treat the reservations as creating an easement appurtenant to any specific downstream mill sites, instead finding them to be in the nature of  a prendre in alieno solo, as in Engel v. Ayer, 85 Maine 448 [27 A. 352]. See id. at 558, 33 A. at 176. [A] profit a prendre in the lands of another, when not granted in favor of a dominant tenement, cannot properly be said to be an easement, but an estate or interest in land itself. Engel v. Ayer, 85 Me. 448, 455, 27 A. 352, 354 (1893) (citation omitted). Accordingly, the rarely addressed sluicing rights at issue in Ring are not analogous to the flowage rights at issue in this case. Ring therefore provides no support for Dorey's proposition that flowage rights pursuant to the Mill Act are a unique type of easement appurtenant that can be independently transferred apart from the mill site to which they are appurtenant. [¶ 15] To the extent that flowage rights to the Foster Pond dam still exist, they are in the nature of an easement appurtenant to the dam site on lot 27 and the sawmill site on lot 11A and cannot exist apart from those lots. See Opinions of the Justices, 118 Me. at 507, 106 A. at 869. Accordingly, the conveyance of flowage rights alone in the May 28, 1980 deed is of no legal effect. The court therefore was correct in concluding that Dorey did not have flowage rights relative to the dam at the outlet of Foster Pond by virtue of that deed.
[¶ 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.
[¶ 17] Finally, Dorey argues that he possesses flowage rights relative to the outlet dam through his fee ownership of the original gristmill property, located downstream from the dam and sawmill. Here he relies on the 1849 conveyance from Joseph Foster to Benjamin Knapp of a half-interest in the sawmill property, in which Foster reserved to the mills on the old privilege below [the gristmill property], the right to draw water for the use of any mills which are, or may be on said old privilege when needed. [¶ 18] Dorey asserts that this express reservation remains with the original gristmill property he currently owns. We need not reach Dorey's argument, however, because he overlooks the fact that, in 1860, Knapp relinquished his half-interest in the sawmill property back to Foster, thus extinguishing the need for and existence of Foster's earlier reservation. See Great Cove Boat Club v. Bureau of Pub. Lands, 672 A.2d 91, 94 (Me.1996) (An easement appurtenant can be terminated ... by conduct of both parties (merger or estoppel)); LeMay v. Anderson, 397 A.2d 984, 987 n. 3 (Me.1979) (Unity of title to the dominant and servient estate, of course, extinguishes an easement.); Fitanides v. Holman, 310 A.2d 65, 67 (Me.1973) (whatever claim to a right of way which might have existed ended with merger of the subject lots in one owner). [11] [¶ 19] In sum, Dorey does not own the property containing the dam or the sawmill, did not acquire rights to operate the dam by purchasing a distant piece of the original sawmill property, and could not acquire the appurtenant right to operate the dam without also acquiring the land upon which it sits. [12] The entry is: Judgment affirmed.