Court Opinion

ID: 9663699
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:48:38.899999+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:55.409831
License: Public Domain

Clinton, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent for the reasons I now state. The majority opinion acknowledges: “The easement grant, dated April 17, 1967, described ‘An Agricultural levee . . . as described in Plan Numbers M(R613) C1-310E of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.’ Those plans did not disclose electric motors or a power line.” The more complete language describing the use is: “An Agricultural levee and obtaining Borrow Material therefor as described in Plan Numbers M (R613) C1-310E of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.” (Emphasis supplied.) Yet the court goes on to hold that the easement may be used for the construction of a power line. It would seem that such a conclusion could be arrived at only upon the theory that the construction of a power line is by definition, usage, or common understanding included within the term “agricultural levee.” There is no evidence to support that position. The dictionary defines levee as an embankment designed to prevent flooding. The word agricultural would imply that its purpose is to protect agricultural lands. There is nothing in the language or the plans referred to which could inform or advise the grantor that a power line would be constructed and maintained on the easement site.
Unless a person has some special knowledge he could not know or suspect from the language of the plans referred to that the grant of an easement for an agricultural levee could include the right to build, construct, and maintain a power’ line. The plain, clear meaning of the *625reference to the plans was to describe the dimension of the right-of-way and the location of the borrow area. This is the clear, plain, and unambiguous import of the language “and obtaining Borrow Material therefor as described in Plan Numbers . . ..”
As counsel for the appellee aptly observed in. oral argument the primary rules of construction are those imposed by the meaning of language. The language is clear. We can go no farther.
The following language from the appellants’ brief is apropos and in point: “The use the grantee of an easement may make of the servient estate ‘is limited both as to extent and nature to the terms of the original grant.’ Webb v. Platte Valley Public Power and Irrigation District, 146 Neb. 61, 18 N. W. 2d 563, 566 (1945); Rest., Property, Sec. 482. Where the language of the grant is specific, no activities outside the user granted may be undertaken. County of Johnson v. Weber, 160 Neb. 432, 70 N. W. 2d 440, 447-448 (1955); Cover v. Platte Valley Public Power and Irrigation District, 162 Neb. 146, 75 N. W. 2d 661, 667 (1956). As this Court stated in County of Johnson v. Weber, supra, ‘the rule is that if the grant of an easement or reservation is specific in its terms, it is decisive of the limits of the easement.’
“The ordinary rules of construction applicable to deeds apply to easements by grant. 28 C. J. S., Easements, § 75, pp. 752-753; 25 Am. Jur. 2d, Easements, § 75, p. 481. If the language of an easement ‘is couched in clear and unambiguous language’, the easement ‘is not subject to a construction other and different from that which flows from the language used.’ Cover v. Platte Valley Public Power and Irrigation District, supra, 75 N. W. 2d 667; 28 C. J. S., Easements, § 75, p. 753.”
At the time the easement was signed the complete plans of the levee system as distinguished from just the portion of it on the defendants’ land were not even in existence. These do show that at other points in *626the levee system electric pumps would be used and that access to power supply would be needed. The court now in effect has incorporated the complete plans in the easement granted by the plaintiff.
The case of Bors v. McGowan, 159 Neb. 790, 68 N. W. 2d 596, does not, in my judgment, support the action of the court. That case involves simply the right of an owner of an easement for ingress and egress to keep the road in repair so that it remained usable.
The case of the appellee is not one which creates any special sympathy. The levees are beneficial to it. The power line will not substantially increase the burden of the easement. Nonetheless, this is a case where the principles are more important than the equities. The ordinary rules of conveyance should not be stretched to accommodate and remedy the oversight of the draftsman for the United States Army Corps of Engineers.