Court Opinion

ID: 9788947
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:23:10.853963+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:17.932519
License: Public Domain

HILL, J.,
dissenting,
with whom KITE, J. joins.
[130] I do not agree with the majority that the easement in question prohibited a gate, or that the gate in issue "prohibits the access and convenient passage of easement owner along the easement as expressly granted," or that the gate was not reasonable and necessary given the undisputed facts of this case. For these reasons, I respectfully dissgnt.
[131] It is undisputed that some of the landowner's horses were able to jump or otherwise traverse the cattle guard at issue, that if the horses got through the cattle guard, they would be in a county highway, and that some horses were injured in the process. The majority appropriately notes that the casement provides that the casement holder may maintain a roadway to the extent deemed necessary for proper access. However, the easement certainly does not imply that that roadway was meant to be absolutely unobstructed by a gate. The two parties are required to share the roadway, or at least that portion of it which traverses the landowner's property, and that can be readily accomplished even with a gate in place. After all, the properties are in rural Wyoming.
[132] The established law almost uniformly provides that a servient estate owner (the landowner in our discussions above) has all rights and benefits of ownership consistent with the easement. The grant of a right-of-way without reservation of the right to maintain gates does not necessarily preclude the servient estate owner from having gates. Indeed, unless the easement contains language expressly prohibiting a gate, or the circumstances surrounding the grant of the *185easement make it clear that an open, unobstructed and unfettered right of access was intended, then the servient estate may maintain a gate so long as the gate is necessary and does not unreasonably interfere with the dominant estate's (in our discussion above, the easement holder's) right of access.
[183] Furthermore, I do not perceive the cases of Weiss v. Pedersen, 933 P.2d 495 (Wyo.1997) and Van Raden v. Harper, 891 P.2d 78 (Wyo.1995), as requiring the result reached by the majority. I believe that the majority opinion reads too much into those decisions, and it is my view that they are readily distinguishable on their facts. To the extent they are viewed so as to justify the decision reached by the majority, I would modify our prior decisions to conform them to the vast majority of the cases which hold to the contrary, especially in a rural, agricultural setting. See Daniel E. Feld, Annotation, Right to Maintain Gate or Fence Across Right of Way, 52 A.L.R.3d 9 (1973 and Supp.2001).
[134] In a rural, agricultural area in Wyoming, I do not see the gate at issue here as unreasonable. Indeed, it appears to be clearly necessary. Although the district court's finding with respect to cattle guards may have been beyond the facts of this case, it seems clear from the uncontroverted facts that the cattle guard at issue was not effective in protecting the landowner's horses from injury, nor the traveling public from the dangers posed by landowner's escaped horses. Again, given the rural, agricultural nature of the lands in issue and the facts of this case, I do not see a gate as an obstruction or inconvenience, and it certainly does not prohibit access.
[¥85] A part of the district court's judgment is this:
2. The Plaintiffs [easement holder's] request for immediate relief enjoining the Defendants [landowners] from keeping a gate across the existing cattle guard located next to the Lincoln County road is denied. Provided, however, that if and when the Plaintiff erects a cattle guard that conforms to Wyoming State Highway Department standards, the Defendants are, at that point, enjoined from placing a gate across or in front of the cattle guard.
[186] I would modify that portion of the judgment to provide that the landowner may maintain a gate so long as the facts show it is necessary, and not an unreasonable interference with the easement, and remand this matter to the district court for any further proceedings which may be sought by the parties.