Opinion ID: 2334067
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Reach 18: Fee Simple Absolute

Text: ¶ 26 Entered in 1914, the Crane Judgment is a judgment and order of the Salt Lake County District Court. In that judgment, it is ORDERED, ADJUDGED, and DECREED THAT PLAINTIFF take and acquire and have for its use in fee the said land hereinafter described. The judgment nowhere uses the words easement or right of way, the terms typically used to convey a right to pass over another's land. See Richard v. Pines Ranch, Inc., 559 P.2d 948, 949 (Utah 1977) (A right of way means a right to pass over another's land.... (quoting 1 THOMPSON ON REAL PROPERTY § 464 (1924))). And as the district court concluded, no other language in the Crane Judgment in any way limits the grant to an easement. ¶ 27 Appellants nonetheless insist that the only estate that could legally be conveyed by the Crane Judgment was an easement. They point to the eminent domain statute in force at the time of the judgment, which authorized the taking only of a right of way. [8] Appellants also point to Moon Lake Water Users Ass'n v. Hanson, in which we held that a judgment pursuant to an analogous eminent domain statute conveyed only an easement, even though the judgment purported to convey title in fee simple. 535 P.2d 1262, 1264 (Utah 1975). ¶ 28 These arguments fail because unlike the judgment in Moon Lake the Crane Judgment was not contested. Prior to the judgment, the Cranes stipulated that a decree of condemnation may be entered herein, condemning in fee to plaintiff the property hereafter described. Appellants have pointed to no rule that would prevent the Cranes from agreeing to convey the entire fee interest to ULIC for an agreed-upon price. [9] This distinguishes Moon Lake, in which the condemnor won a contested judgment against the condemnee. See id. at 1263. Had the Cranes not agreed to convey a fee interest, ULIC would have been limited to whatever statutory powers of condemnation it possessed. But given the Cranes' stipulation and the explicit grant of a fee in the judgment, the only reasonable conclusion is that ULIC acquired a fee simple interest in Reach 18. ¶ 29 Moreover, that fee simple interest is not subject to a restrictive covenant limiting the use of Reach 18 to canal purposes. Though the introduction to the Crane Judgment states that the action was commenced to condemn the property ... for the purpose of constructing and maintaining a canal, this prefatory statement of purpose in no way limits the operative terms of the judgment. These terms constitute an unambiguous order and decree that the Cranes take and acquire an unqualified fee interest in the land in question. These operative terms of the judgment contain no restriction or limitation to canal purposes, and we see no basis for inferring such a restriction from the prefatory purpose statement. An action commenced for one particular purpose could certainly be resolved in a manner that extends beyond that purpose, and the Crane Judgment unambiguously does just that. We decline to read a preliminary statement of purpose as a limit on the operative terms of a judgment, and hold that the Crane Judgment imposed no restrictive covenant that would limit the property's use to canal purposes.