Court Opinion

ID: 9750899
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 15:45:53.96875+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:27.951394
License: Public Domain

LEVY, J.,
with whom SILVER, J., joins, dissenting.
[¶ 25] I agree with the majority opinion that section 772 of the Short Form Deeds Act, 33 M.R.S. §§ 761-775 (2011), applies in this case, but part company from the Court’s ultimate conclusion that the haben-dum clause of the 1925 deed does not operate to create an easement appurtenant. I therefore respectfully dissent.
[¶ 26] The grant of the easement in the 1925 deed must be construed as conveying an appurtenant easement, whether or not technical words of inheritance are included in the deed, “unless a different intention clearly appears in the deed.” Id. § 772(1). The majority opinion concludes that the deed’s specific grant of the right-of-way to “this Grantee,” as distinguished from the deed’s more general conveyance of the parcel to “Leon Benoit, his Heirs and Assigns forever,” establishes a different intention clearly appearing in the deed. This conclusion cannot be reconciled with (A) the language of the deed itself, (B) *1012settled precedent, and (C) the Short Form Deeds Act.
A. Language of the Deed
[¶ 27] The 1925 deed’s conveyance of the right-of-way to “this Grantee” does not plainly establish an express limitation of the estate it grants. The conveyance to “this Grantee” may be understood, as the majority concludes, as referring exclusively to Benoit, thus establishing an easement in gross. But it may also be understood as referring to the grantee as previously identified in the deed — “Leon Benoit, his Heirs and Assigns forever”-thus establishing an easement appurtenant. Both constructions are arguably reasonable. Accordingly, the deed’s use of “this Grantee” does not demonstrate a clear intention to establish an easement in gross.
B. Precedent
[¶ 28] Even before the adoption of the Short Form Deeds Act, our decisions established that a deed’s conveyance of a right-of-way to a grantee, without words of inheritance, will nonetheless convey an easement appurtenant by operation of the deed’s habendum clause. Dana v. Smith, 114 Me. 262, 264, 95 A. 1084 (1915); Berry v. Billings, 44 Me. 416, 428-24 (1857). In Dana, a warranty deed conveyed a parcel to the grantee and “his heirs and assigns,” and included the language, “a right is also given [to Haney] to pass to the highway by the shore of the flowage such as will convene his purpose,” without any words of inheritance as to the easement. Dana, 114 Me. at 263-64, 95 A. 1034. The Court found that the deed contained no “express limitation” of the easement, and that the habendum clause operated to make the easement appurtenant:
It is familiar law that the office of the habendum is to limit or declare and fix the nature and extent of the interest or title conveyed by the premises. It may define, enlarge or, in some cases, diminish the estate granted. Where, however, there is in the premises no express limitation of the estate granted, its office to enlarge is generally undoubted. The effect of the habendum in the case before us is to convert what the premises leave as a life estate into an estate in fee.
Id. at 264, 95 A. 1034.
[¶ 29] Here, similarly, without express limitation of the estate in the premises, the deed’s habendum clause serves to convey an easement appurtenant.
C.Short Form Deeds Act
[¶ 30] The Short Form Deeds Act supports the approach embraced in Dana. The very premise of the Short Form Deeds Act is that technical words of inheritance “are not necessary to convey or reserve an estate in fee.” 33 M.R.S. § 772(1). Further, the Legislature expressly directed that section 772 “must be liberally construed to effect the legislative purpose of clarifying title to land currently encumbered by ancient deeds that lacked technical words of inheritance or an habendum clause.” Id. § 772(5). As applied here, a liberal construction of section 772(1) is one that does not treat the omission of words of inheritance as establishing a clear intention to convey no more than an easement in gross.
[¶ 31] The 1925 deed contains both words of inheritance and an habendum clause, and the only uncertainty it presents is that there are no additional words of inheritance expressly associated with the conveyance of the right-of-way. But if section 772 means anything, it is that a deed that contains words of inheritance and an habendum clause but omits additional words of inheritance in describing the grant of an included right-of-way still conveys an estate in fee as to the right-of-*1013way, unless a different intention clearly appears in the deed.
[¶ 32] Because there is no clearly expressed limitation in the 1925 deed on the estate conveyed in connection with the right-of-way, the effect of the habendum clause, as in Dana, “is to convert what the premises leave as a life estate into an estate in fee.” Dana, 114 Me. at 264, 95 A. 1034. For these reasons the judgment should be vacated.