Court Opinion

ID: 9657882
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:40:17.718045+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:49.091940
License: Public Domain

BIEGELMEIER, Presiding Judge (concurring).
I concur in Judge Hanson's opinion, but desire to clarify the issues and situation presented as they appear to me.
First, as to the contentions of the parties, defendants-appellants Bradshaws, speaking in their own words state in their brief:
"* * * we deem it appropriate at this point to call the Court's attention to the fast that both the plaintiffs (Salmons) and the defendants (Bradshaws) have taken the position in this proceeding that the easement of April 2, 1956, is clear, definite and unambiguous in its terms and provisions. The parties are in agreement on this. (Defendants in a page-long footnote cite and quote from plaintiffs' brief, Conclusions of Law and filed objections to this effect)
"¥ -v * defendants (Bradshaws) took the position (1) that since both sides conceded that the easement * * * is, in fact, clear, definite and unambiguous in *508its terms and provisions, the intention of the grantors of the written easement must be determined from the wording of the written instrument itself, and no resort may be had to extrinsic evidence".
The parties in their own words seem to agree on that issue.
Secondly, though Judge Hanson's opinion states the situation in words, it is difficult by words alone to describe the odd and unusual plat of Block 3 without a copy of it, which does appear in one of the briefs. The block itself is odd in that eight lots are clustered in the south side or base, with nine in the north or curved cone with Lot 10 dividing them. It runs east and west from a width of nearly 200' fronting Austin Avenue on the east to Kiwanis on the west and can be described as the right half of a table tennis paddle, the handle of which is the 40' by 140' appendage extending from the bulk of Lot 10 between plaintiffs' Lot 2 and Lot 18 to the south. Without some right to use this appendage for "driveway and street purposes and for full purposes of ingress and egress to and from" plaintiffs' Lot 2 and "access to Kiwanis Avenue", plaintiffs' lot would have been of little or no value. The owners of Lot 10 and plaintiffs as purchasers of Lot 2 recognized this; hence the now disputed easement.
This picture of the situation constrains me to concur in the opinion as to the territorial extent of the easement; its size, shape and location and the wording of it are all consonant with each other and point to the result reached in the opinion.
The easement in words does not nor does the opinion grant exclusive right to use the corridor nor any use in deprivation of any rights the owners of Lot 10 to use it; thus neither may block nor bar use of the other or interfere with such use, though the mode of use may not here now be in issue.