Opinion ID: 1494134
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Heading: Hill County Electric's Easement

Text: Both parties urge us to determine Marcus Cable's easement rights as a matter of law. When an easement is susceptible to only one reasonable, definite interpretation after applying established rules of contract construction, we are obligated to construe it as a matter of law even if the parties offer different interpretations of the easement's terms. DeWitt, 1 S.W.3d at 100. Because the easement here can be given a definite meaning, we interpret it as a matter of law. The easement granted Hill County Electric the right to use the Krohns' property for the purpose of constructing and maintaining an electric transmission or distribution line or system. The terms electric transmission and electric distribution are commonly and ordinarily associated with power companies conveying electricity to the public. See, e.g., Texas Power & Light Co. v. Cole, 158 Tex. 495, 313 S.W.2d 524, 526-27, 530 (1958); Resendez v. Lyntegar Elec. Coop., Inc., 511 S.W.2d 350, 352-53 (Tex.Civ.App.Amarillo 1974, no writ); Upshur-Rural Elec. Coop. Corp. v. State, 381 S.W.2d 418, 424 (Tex. Civ.App.-Austin 1964, writ dism'd) (using terms electric transmission and/or distribution to describe equipment used by power companies to convey electricity); see also Restatement (Third) of Property (Servitudes) § 4.10 illus. 3 & 12 (using electric-transmission lines to designate lines operated by power companies); Tex. Util.Code § 39.157(a), (d)(3) (providing that Public Utility Commission shall regulate market-power abuses in the sale of electricity by utilities providing electric transmission or distribution services). Texas cases decided around the time the cooperative's easement was granted strongly suggest that this was the commonly understood meaning of those terms. See, e.g., City of Bryan v. A & M Consol. Indep. Sch. Dist., 179 S.W.2d 987, 988 (Tex.Civ.App.-Waco 1944), aff'd, 143 Tex. 348, 184 S.W.2d 914 (1945); Texas-New Mexico Utils. Co. v. City of Teague, 174 S.W.2d 57, 59 (Tex.Civ.App.-Fort Worth 1943, writ ref'd w.o.m.); Arcola Sugar Mills Co. v. Houston Lighting & Power Co., 153 S.W.2d 628, 629-30 (Tex.Civ.App.-Galveston 1941, writ ref'd w.o.m.); McCulloch County Elec. Co-op., Inc. v. Hall, 131 S.W.2d 1019, 1020, 1022 (Tex.Civ.App.-Austin 1939, writ dism'd); Willacy County v. Central Power & Light Co., 73 S.W.2d 1060, 1061 (Tex.Civ.App.-San Antonio 1934, writ dism'd) (using term electric transmission to describe equipment used by power companies to convey electricity). Accordingly, we construe the easement's terms to allow use of the property for facilities to transmit electricity. Marcus Cable does not argue that the generally prevailing meaning of the easement's grant encompasses cable-television services. Instead, it claims that, for reasons of public policy, we should construe the easement to embrace modern developments, without regard to the easement's language. In support of that position, Marcus Cable cites a number of decisions in other jurisdictions that have allowed the use of easements predating cable technology to allow installation of cable transmission lines. The cases Marcus Cable cites, however, involve different granting language and do not support the proposition that we may disregard the parties' expressed intentions or expand the purposes for which an easement may be used. To the contrary, those cases involve easements containing much broader granting language than the easement before us. Most of them involved easements granted for communications media, such as telegraph and telephone, in addition to electric utility easements. In concluding that the easements were broad enough to encompass cable, the reviewing courts examined the purpose for which the easement was granted and essentially concluded that the questioned use was a more technologically advanced means of accomplishing the same communicative purpose. For example, in Salvaty v. Falcon Cable Television , the 1926 easement permitted its holder to maintain both electric wires and telephone wires. 165 Cal.App.3d 798, 212 Cal.Rptr. 31, 32, 35 (1985). The court held that cable-television lines were within the easement's scope, observing that cable television is part of the natural evolution of communications technology. Id. at 34-35 (emphasis added); accord Witteman v. Jack Barry Cable TV, 228 Cal.Rptr. 584, 589 (Cal.Ct.App.1986) (same). Similarly, the Fourth Circuit held that an easement allowing its holder to use the land for the purpose of maintaining pole lines for electrical and telephone service was sufficiently broad to encompass cabletelevision lines. C/R TV, Inc. v. Shannondale, Inc., 27 F.3d 104, 106, 109-10 (4th Cir.1994) (applying West Virginia law). In reaching its conclusion, the court relied on the similar communicative aspects of both telephone services and cable-television services. Id. at 109-10. Other cases Marcus Cable cites also involved easements granted for communications-transmission purposes. See, e.g., Cousins v. Alabama Power Co., 597 So.2d 683, 686-87 (Ala.1992) (involving easementsgranted for the purpose of maintaining electric transmission lines and all telegraph and telephone linesthat the landowners conceded included the right to maintain fiberoptics telecommunications lines); Jolliff v. Hardin Cable Television Co., 26 Ohio St.2d 103, 55 O.O.2d 203, 269 N.E.2d 588, 591 (1971) (concluding that cable-television wires were a burden contemplated at the time of the grants [to the power company], as evidenced by the specific reference to telegraph and telephone wires in the 1940 easement); Am. Tel. & Tel. Co. of Mass. v. McDonald, 273 Mass. 324, 173 N.E. 502, 502-03 (1930) (concluding that easement granted for the purpose of maintaining lines of telephone and telegraph could be apportioned by the easement holder to a telephone company seeking to install a telephone cable, and that [n]othing granted to the [company] enables it to do anything which the original grantee could not have done); Henley v. Continental Cablevision of St. Louis County, Inc., 692 S.W.2d 825, 827, 829 (Mo.Ct.App. 1985) (concluding that cable television fell within the 1922 easement grantors' expressed intention to provide electric power and telephonic communications to subdivision residents); Hoffman v. Capitol Cablevision Sys., Inc., 52 A.D.2d 313, 383 N.Y.S.2d 674, 676, 677 (N.Y.App.Div.1976) (involving easements for the distribution of electricity and messages, and concluding that cable-television wires were no greater burden than that contemplated by the original easements). We express no opinion about whether the cases Marcus Cable relies upon were correctly decided. But, unlike the cases Marcus Cable cites, Hill County Electric's easement does not convey the right to use the property for purposes of transmitting communications. While cable television may utilize electrical impulses to transmit communications, as Marcus Cable claims, [2] television transmission is not a more technologically advanced method of delivering electricity. Thus, the above-referenced cases do not support Marcus Cable's argument that the easement here encompasses the additional purpose of transmitting television content to the public. Marcus Cable cites only two cases involving easements whose grants did not include telephone or telegraph services, and neither supports its position. In Centel Cable Television, Inc. v. Cook , the court interpreted easement language that permitted its holder to maintain a line for the transmission and/or distribution of electric energy thereover, for any and all purposes for which electric energy is now, or may hereafter be used.  58 Ohio St.3d 8, 567 N.E.2d 1010, 1014 (1991) (emphasis added). Observing that cable-television broadcasting  utilize[s] ... `electric energy,' the court concluded that the grant language was broad enough to encompass cable television. Id. (emphasis added). And Hise v. BARC Electric Cooperative, 254 Va. 341, 492 S.E.2d 154, 158 (1997), involved a right-of-way easement by prescription that had been used for cabletelevision lines during the prescriptive period and that was later widened through eminent domain. It did not involve a privately-negotiated, express easement. See, e.g., Nishanian v. Sirohi, 243 Va. 337, 414 S.E.2d 604, 606 (1992) (The use of an [express] easement must be restricted to the terms and purposes on which the grant was based. (citing Robertson v. Bertha Mineral Co., 128 Va. 93, 104 S.E. 832, 834 (1920))). The easements in Marcus Cable's cited cases are simply not comparable to the more limited, express easement presented here. Finally, Marcus Cable cites San Antonio & Aransas Pass Railway v. Southwestern Telegraph & Telephone Co., 93 Tex. 313, 55 S.W. 117 (1900), for the proposition that an easement must be interpreted to embrace technological change. But that case does not support the idea that a court may ignore the contracting parties' intent as reflected in their written language. There, we were called upon to determine whether a statute granting condemnation power to telegraph companies applied equally to telephone companies. Id. Relying upon later statutory enactments that reflected the Legislature's intent to treat both the same, and recognizing that telegraph and telephone are two different means of accomplishing the same communicative purpose, we held that the statute at issue applied to telephone companies. Id. at 118-19. The dissenting Justice would hold that the easement could properly be read to encompass cable because electricity is used in the transmission of cable television signals. Under such a reading, however, the easement could also be used for telegraph or telephone lines. Obviously, the Krohns' predecessors could have granted an easement for those purposes. But the easement's specific terms cannot be read so broadly. In sum, the easement language here, properly construed, does not permit cabletelevision lines to be strung across the Krohns' land without their consent. However laudable the goal of extending cable service might be, we cannot disregard the easement's express terms to enlarge its purposes beyond those intended by the contracting parties. To the extent the trial court granted Marcus Cable summary judgment on this basis, it erred, and the court of appeals correctly reversed.