Court Opinion

ID: 9638594
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:48:24.923213+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:08.163315
License: Public Domain

*825WATHEN, Justice,
with whom McKUSICK, C.J., joins, dissenting.
I must respectfully dissent. The Court’s analysis is flawed. This is not simply a case in which the owner of the dominant estate establishes a prescriptive easement for residential access and then subdivides the dominant estate. In such circumstances it is appropriate to apportion the easement among the portions of the lot to which the easement is appurtenant, provided that the servient estate is not unreasonably burdened. The present case is more complicated. The Davises first acquired a single parcel of land with a residence and, in 1932, began to use the servient estate to gain access. In 1935 and 1956, they acquired five parcels of adjoining land from two different grantors which they used as field and pasture. In 1961, they acquired additional parcels of land from another grantor. Although this land adjoins the expanded parcel, it had not previously been served by the easement. All of the lots at issue remained non-residential until 1979.
The Court correctly finds twenty years of continuous use with reference to all parcels by tacking on the prior usage of the Davises. It errs, however, in failing to consider that the nature of the easement appurtenant to each lot is determined by the use of the easement made by the Davis-es and their successors during their period of ownership for the benefit of that particular lot. Use of the easement to provide access to a residence on one lot does not establish a similar easement for a lot purchased at a later time and used as a pasture. The issue is not, as the Court suggests, whether the easement for access to residences is per se overburdened by converting pastures to residential property. The appropriate inquiry is the scope of the prescriptive easements appurtenant to the parcels used for agricultural purposes.
“The extent of an easement created by prescription is fixed by the use through which it was created.” Restatement of Property, § 477. Although some variation is inevitable, the use made under a prescriptive easement must either be consistent with the general pattern of use that gave rise to the creation of the easement or result from the normal evolution of that use. Id. §§ 478-479. In Benner v. Sherman, 371 A.2d 420 (Me.1977), we applied the Restatement principles and held that the use of land for general recreational purposes did not create an easement broad enough in scope to include access for shore front cottages. Id. at 423. In the present case, I conclude that a prescriptive easement obtained for access to a dominant parcel of land used for agricultural purposes does not include access to residences placed on the parcel at a later point. The residential use is not consistent with the general pattern of agricultural use that served as the basis for the easement nor has it evolved from that use. See Annotation, Scope of Prescriptive Easement for Access, 79 A.L.R.4th 604, 627 (1990) for cases from other jurisdictions supporting this view. With the exception of lot 48D and lot 48A, I would vacate the judgment of the Superior Court and remand for a declaration of prescriptive rights consistent with the agricultural use that gave rise to those rights.