Court Opinion

ID: 9764113
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:10:53.149951+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:53.684604
License: Public Domain

CADENA, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I do not agree with that portion of the majority opinion affirming the instructed verdict in favor of the title company.
The portion of the title policy which excludes from coverage “[r]ights of parties in possession” is inapplicable unless we ignore the rule that exceptions in an insurance policy are to be strictly construed in favor of the insured where the language is reasonably susceptible to more than one construction. 32 Tex.Jur.2d Insurance § 59 (1962).
*409An easement is an interest in land which is in the possession of another. 5 Restatement of Property § 450, comments a and b (1944). It is this nonpossessory character of easements which results in their classification as incorporeal interests. Id. comment c. Since the holder of an easement has merely a right of user in the servient tenement, he cannot be said to be in possession of the land subject to the easement and it is incorrect to assert that he takes “possession” of the easement unless we construe the term “possession” in an unusual manner in order to construe the exception in favor of the insurer. See 2 G. Thompson, Real Property § 315, at 11 (repl. 1961).
Since a person exercising his right to traverse the land of another is not in possession of the land which is subject to the right-of-way, his exercise of his right under the easement constitutes no notice under the exclusion in question or the familiar rule of law concerning rights of possessors which the exclusion incorporates.
The evidence that, prior to the date of the policy, the Jupes had notice that the road in question was being used by the public is, in my opinion, so meager that it cannot support the instruction of a verdict in favor of the title company.