Opinion ID: 1658412
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Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the scope of an easement established by user

Text: Eyde contends that because Mt. Hope Highway is a highway dedicated by user and not by statute, [4] the public's easement applies only to surface travel; therefore, Blue Cross cannot construct a sewer within the easement unless the drain commissioner obtains Eyde's consent under § 73 of the Drain Code of 1956 or compensates Eyde through condemnation proceedings under § 75 of the Drain Code. While Eyde is correct in stating that it retains the title in fee simple to property up to the center line of a highway dedicated by user, see Village of Grandville v Jenison, 84 Mich 54, 65; 47 NW 600 (1890) ([t]he effect of a dedication under the statute has been to vest the fee in the county, ... at common law, the act of dedication created only an easement in the public), Eyde is not correct in arguing that the scope of an easement dedicated by user is limited to surface travel. This precise issue appears to be one of first impression for this Court. In prior cases, either the law of the case did not stand on all fours with the issue or facts at bar, or the case was resolved on a collateral or unrelated issue. But these cases give us a basis to reason what a rule should be. In 1949, this Court addressed the issue of a fee owner's suit to enjoin the City of Detroit from building a subsurface automobile garage within an easement in Cleveland v Detroit, 324 Mich 527; 37 NW2d 625 (1949). The trial court determined that the plaintiff retained the title in fee simple to the center of Washington boulevard, abutting and adjoining her property `subject to the easement of the public for its use as a public highway....' Id. at 530. The Cleveland Court relied on two cases to conclude that this subsurface parking structure was a valid use of the highway easement. Id. at 537. That Court relied on In re Widening of Fulton Street, 248 Mich 13; 226 NW 690 (1929), to justify parking as an appropriate highway easement use  Fulton approved surface parking as an appropriate highway use. To justify the subsurface use of the highway easement, the Cleveland Court relied on Detroit City Ry v Mills, [5] 85 Mich 634; 48 NW 1007 (1891), which found that that type of use was approved ... so far as `heating, lighting, draining, sewerage, water, et cetera' are concerned. Cleveland, supra at 537 (quoting Mills ). While the subsurface use at issue in Cleveland was for a parking garage and not a sewer system, the reasoning is still applicable to the case at bar. Prior to Cleveland, we held that a condition subsequent in a deed formally dedicating land for a highway was void as against public policy because it restricted uses commonly adopted by public authority for the benefit of the people, such as sewer, water, gas, lighting, and telephone systems. Grosse Pointe Shores v Ayres, 254 Mich 58, 64; 235 NW 829 (1931). Although the Ayres case involved the examination of a condition in a deed, the public policy statement recognizing the importance of using highway easements for other than travel is persuasive argument for the case at bar. A highway easement is in the public and cannot be limited by individual perceptions of what the scope of that easement should be. In 1874, Justice COOLEY stated that sewers are among the contemplated uses for public easements in dedicated streets in Warren v Grand Haven, 30 Mich 24 (1874): The dedication of land to the purposes of a village or city street must be understood as made and accepted with the expectation that it may be required for other public purposes than those of passage and travel merely, and that under the direction and control of the public authorities it is subject to be appropriated to all the uses to which village and city streets are usually devoted, as the wants or convenience of the people may render necessary or important. One of these uses is the construction of sewers, which are usually laid under the public streets; and the custom to lay them there must be assumed to be had in view when a way is dedicated.... [ Id. at 27-28. Citations omitted.] Warren was decided on another issue, [6] thus the statement above is obiter dictum, yet it retains its value for its recognition, as in Ayres, of the importance of street easements for uses other than travel, and specifically, sewers. Some years after Warren was decided, this Court in Village of Manchester v Clarkson, 195 Mich 354; 162 NW 115 (1917), addressed a village's right to construct a sewer along a public alley that had been dedicated by user. The abutting land-owner retained the fee in the alley and refused to consent to the construction of the sewer. The precise issue was whether the trial judge invaded the province of the jury by deciding as a matter of law the factual issue of whether the sewer followed a public alley established by user.... Id. at 356. In discussing this issue, however, the Court stated: That public alleys involve easements in the nature of ways for the installation of water pipes, sewers, and other urban services for the general welfare under municipal regulation is well settled. Id. at 360. Thus, these cases uniformly state that highway easements have greater scope than Eyde contends. However, in none of these cases was the deciding issue the same as we have in the case at bar. The Court of Appeals has decided two cases that are similar to the instant case. In Gunn v Delhi Twp, 8 Mich App 278; 154 NW2d 598 (1967), the Court held, inter alia, that in Michigan nonstatutory dedication of land for use as a public road or highway operates to transfer to public authorities and public utility companies the right to construct sewer lines thereunder, and thus there was no deprivation of property in the constitutional sense. Id. at 284. The plaintiff in Gunn owned land abutting a county road and sought to enjoin the township from constructing a sewer line within the road. As the fee owner, the plaintiff had claimed that the township could not construct the sewer without his permission, and that if the sewer line were not removed, the township must pay damages or condemn the property. The second Court of Appeals decision on this issue was Hull v Green Oak Twp, 24 Mich App 309; 180 NW2d 204 (1970). The Hull Court concluded in a brief per curiam opinion that it was unnecessary for the township to compensate the abutting landowner through condemnation proceedings because the sewer runs wholly in the public roadway. Id. at 311. In Hull, the defendant township filed a petition for condemnation to obtain an easement across the plaintiff's land for the purpose of constructing a sanitary sewer. The plaintiff received no notice of the proceedings and sued to declare them a nullity. The defendant prevailed on a motion for summary judgment, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the condemnation was unnecessary because the easement in question lay wholly in and on a roadway maintained by the [county] and is and has been open to and used by the general public for an excess of 25 years. Id. at 310. In Cleveland, expanding the scope of a public highway easement to include subsurface parking garages was a natural consequence that answered a definite public need and generated a definite public benefit. The Cleveland Court adopted the reasoning that if parking places for automobiles are a natural outgrowth of hitching posts for horses, then parking within the subsurface is a natural outgrowth of the lack of parking on Washington Boulevard. Further, the Cleveland Court reasoned that if projects such as those for sewers, gas, lighting, and telephones are anticipated uses of subsurface public easements, then the subsurface could also be used for public parking. Thus, the Cleveland case is persuasive support for our holding that construction of a sewer within the subsurface of a highway easement is a proper and contemplated public use of the easement. And while the actual holdings in Warren, Clarkson, and Ayres are not on all fours with the issue in the case at bar; we find the quoted dicta to be persuasive. Further, we find accord in the Court of Appeals cases, Gunn and Hull. For these reasons, we hold that a public easement in a highway dedicated by user is not limited to surface travel, but includes those uses, such as the installation of sewers, contemplated to be in the public interest and for the public benefit.