Court Opinion

ID: 9727983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:54:33.227694+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:44.810430
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting.
An implied easement is to be read into a deed silent on the subject whenever such an easement is reasonably necessary for the fair enjoyment of the claiming tenement. Shandy v. Bell, (1934) 207 Ind. 215, 189 N.E. 627. See: Pyramid Coal Corp. v. Pratt, (1951) 229 Ind. 648, 99 N.E.2d 427; Ritchey et al. v. Welsh, (1897) 149 Ind. 214, 48 N.E. 1031. It is sufficient for an implied grant of an easement that a reasonable necessity for it be shown. It is not a requirement of the law that a strict or absolute necessity for it be shown. The John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Patterson, (1885) 103 Ind. 582, 2 N.E. 188. The rule of reasonable necessity produces the corollary rule most pertinent here that the fact that a claiming tenement itself abuts upon a public road and has legal access to such road does not foreclose the owner of such claiming tenement from showing that he is entitled to a way of necessity. The John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Patterson, supra; Krueger v. Beecham, (1945) 116 Ind.App. 89, 61 N.E.2d 65. The motion in limine sustained in the trial court and the in-trial objections were directed toward efforts by the State to show that Innkeepers Corporation acquired an implied easement across the adjoining lands of the Tabors to a nearby lesser road when the corporation acquired it from them by deed. The motion and objections were based upon the erroneous legal premise that no such easement could have been acquired because the land conveyed had legal access to State Road 3 at the time.
The rulings were erroneous and as a consequence of them this case should be reversed for a new trial. The motion in li-mine and the objections which were sustained at trial prevented the State from having the opportunity of establishing the factual predicate from which the jury might have concluded that an easement was reasonably necessary for the fair enjoyment and development of the parcel sold Innkeepers as a motel site.