Court Opinion

ID: 9628275
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:15:45.318468+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:02.651861
License: Public Domain

ROONEY, Justice,
dissenting.
I agree with the general legal propositions set forth in the majority opinion. If we were concerned only with an easement in which plaintiff held the dominant estate and defendant held the servient estate, I would concur in the majority opinion.
However, such is not the case before us. The easements here are reciprocal. Defendant has an easement on plaintiff’s property, and plaintiff has an easement on defendant’s property. Everything said in the majority opinion concerning the rights of plaintiff applies equally to the rights of defendant. This matter was precipitated by plaintiff’s interference with defendant’s easement. Plaintiff first blocked defendant from her use of the driveway for access to her garage.
Plaintiff came into court seeking equitable relief in the form of an injunction. He who seeks equity must do equity. McHale v. Goshen Ditch Co., 49 Wyo. 100, 52 P.2d 678 (1935); Takahashi v. Pepper Tank & Contracting Co., 58 Wyo. 330, 131 P.2d 339 (1942).
“ * * * This maxim, as has been variously stated in decisions dealing with it, expresses a cardinal, elementary, and fundamental principle. It is one of the oldest, best settled, and most familiar maxims in equity jurisprudence, and has been considered the source of every doctrine and rule of equity jurisdiction; it lies at the heart of equity. It is a favorite maxim with a court of equity, has been called its first maxim, and is of extensive application, not being limited to any particular class of cases, but being applicable to all classes of cases whenever necessary to promote justice, and in every kind of litigation and to every species of *1295remedy. A suitor cannot escape the effect of the maxim by resorting to legal niceties.” 30 C.J.S. Equity § 90, pp. 983-988 (1965).
The fact that plaintiff’s actions in blocking defendant from use of the easement were intermittent and only lasted for three days at a time is immaterial. When a person wants to use his garage or other reserved parking space, he wants to use it at the time selected by him. He should not be required to run his motor vehicle back and forth on an hourly or daily basis to keep his access open and free. The obstruction or blocking here was not a minor or technical misuse of defendant’s easement so as to bring into contention the proposition that minor or technical misuse will not justify a forfeiture. Central Christian Church v. Lennon, 59 Wash. 425, 109 P. 1027 (1910); Paul v. Blakely, 243 Iowa 355, 51 N.W.2d 405 (1952).
The situation as it pertains to a reciprocal easement of this nature is distinguishable from the situation of a single easement with reference to the reluctance of a court to declare a forfeiture. Buechner v. Jonas, 228 Cal.App.2d 127, 39 Cal.Rptr. 298 (1964); Paul v. Blakely, supra; Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company v. Spool Stockyards Company, D.C. N.D.Tex., 220 F.Supp. 433 (1963), affirmed 5th Cir. 1965, 353 F.2d 263; The distinction lies in the fact that here plaintiff does not forfeit his dominant estate without a quid pro quo. Here defendant also forfeits her dominant estate. In effect, there is a mutual return of consideration, and therefore no forfeiture.
Two things can be noted as a practical matter. One, an action for damages or for injunctive relief brought by defendant for the blocking of the drive for three days at a time at various intervals is expensive and has the flavor of regularly taking “backyard squabbles” into court. It could be done, but is not as effective as the action here taken to rescind the mutual “implication” of easements. Two, those using reciprocal easements, such as here, should be extremely circumspect in assuring proper use of them. Common courtesy should be reinforced by knowledge that misuse could authorize the other party to rescind the arrangement.
Rather than encourage such misuse, I would reverse on the basis that plaintiff did not come into the court with clean hands.