Opinion ID: 2338385
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Implied Easement Doctrine

Text: This Court has broadly defined an easement as a nonpossessory interest in the real property of another. Boucher v. Boyer, 301 Md. 679, 688, 484 A.2d 630, 635 (1984) (citing Condry v. Laurie, 184 Md. 317, 320, 41 A.2d 66 (1945). Easements may be created by express grant or by implication. Shpak v. Oletsky, 280 Md. 355, 360-61, 373 A.2d 1234 (1977). The Boucher Court said: An implied easement is based on the presumed intention of the parties at the time of the grant or reservation as disclosed from the surrounding circumstances rather than on the language of the deed. [2 G. Thompson, Commentaries on the Modern Law of Real Property ] § 351, at 287 [(J. Grimes ed.1984)]. As a result, courts often refer to extraneous factors to ascertain the intention of the parties. Boucher, 301 Md. at 688, 484 A.2d at 635 (alterations added). Necessity of an easement is one way in which an implied easement is created. Hancock v. Henderson, 236 Md. 98, 102, 202 A.2d 599, 601 (1964). Implied easements by necessity arise from a presumption that the parties intended that the party needing the easement should have access over the land. Greenwalt v. McCardell, 178 Md. 132, 136, 12 A.2d 522, 524 (1940). To better understand the law in respect to implied grants of easements, implied reservations of easements and ways of necessity, it may be helpful to track the treatment of such matters by the Maryland Courts since early in the Court's history, then continuing into more recent times. One of the early cases in which we discussed the reservation of implied easements concerned the Charles Carrolls of Carrollton. McTavish v. Carroll, 7 Md. 352 (1855), involved a grant of land by Charles Carroll of Carrollton in 1832 adjacent to a dam and well retained by Carroll. Ultimately, it was held that Carroll's successor, also a Charles Carroll of Carrollton, had a right, i.e., implied easement of necessity to use roads and other parts of the property his predecessor had conveyed, in order to clean out the mill race which fed or drained the mill pond retained. The millhouse, itself, apparently was part of the property the first Carroll had conveyed, i.e., gifted. There we noted: But we think the privilege of using the dam, race and road, may be sustained upon the principle of legal necessity. Id. at 359. Later in Carroll, addressing the English case of Spencer v. Spencer, 2 Iredell's Law Rep. 95, also a case involving water rights, we quoted from Spencer, in respect to implied ways of necessity by reservation: so far as can be ascertained from the report, there was nothing to show, unless it be by inference only, that it was not merely convenient, but actually necessary, for the land owned by the defendant to be drained through those ditches.... If so, there was no such necessity before the court as would authorize them to have held, that the defendant was entitled, under an implied reservation,... to use the ditches. Id. at 361-62. We also mentioned in Carroll, another English case, Burr v. Mills, 21 Wend. 290 (1839). There, at the time the relevant deed of conveyance was executed, a dam had already been erected that caused water to back up on part of an acre of the land conveyed to the grantee. The grantee's successor filed suit for damages as a result of the flooding. We noted in Carroll that the Burr court had held that even though the dam was in existence, and water covered the granted land at the time of the conveyance, there was no implied reservation or exception in favor of the grantor. Id. at 362. In concluding our discussion of the cases, we opined in Carroll, quoting Angel on Water Courses, section 165: `A way of necessity to a water course would be, therefore, limited to the necessity which created it, and when such necessity ceases, the right of way will also cease.' In the following section the writer treats of the difference between what is necessary, and what is merely convenient, or desirable, and shows that the former is the ruling principle, and not the latter. Id. at 367. In Mitchell v. Seipel, 53 Md. 251 (1880), a grantor conveyed by absolute conveyance a portion of property that contained an alley and did not expressly reserve the right to use the alley in respect to the remainder of the parcel not conveyed. The land not conveyed could be accessed without the utilization of the alley. We first noted that: While the unity of possession thus continued, it is very clear no easement in respect to this alley existed. A party cannot have an easement in his own land. Id. at 263. We then noted: But the question here is, whether upon such a grant, the law will engraft a reservation of such easements in favor of the part retained by the grantor.... It has often been cited ... [that] the doctrine of implied reservation stands upon exactly the same footing as the doctrine of implied grant, but in so far as it may be thought to sustain that position, we have high authority of THESIGER, L.J., who delivered the judgment of the Court of Appeals in Wheeldon v. Burrows, 12 Ch. Div. 31, for the statement that it has again and again been overruled....