Court Opinion

ID: 9684799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:14:14.171092+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:59.661503
License: Public Domain

AKER, Justice,
dissenting.
For the following reasons I must respectfully dissent from the majority opinion of this court.
The majority purports to restrict its holding to enunciation of the principle that an easement by prescription is accompanied by such rights (i.e. secondary easements) as are necessary for enjoyment of the primary easement, while remanding to the Harlan Circuit Court the issue of whether entry onto the servient estate, and the removal of trees and shrubs, was necessary for the use of the primary easement. However, the majority appears to answer the second issue as well.
The majority opinion states as follows: ... [T]his court is of the opinion that the owner of an easement acquired by personal negotiations, by eminent domain, by prescription, or otherwise, for the erection of electric wires may enter upon the premises over which the wires are constructed for the purpose of removing vegetation, or other growth or substance, that interferes with the natural and reasonable use of the easement for the purpose to which the land accommodated by the easement may be naturally and reasonably devoted.
In addition, the majority fails to distinguish between easements arising by prescription and easements resulting from express agreement.
Adverse possession can rest only upon “such open and notorious acts of physical possession as would put the owner upon notice of the assertion of a hostile claim.” H.F. Davis & Co. v. Sizemore, 182 Ky. 680, 207 S.W. 16 (1918). In this case, the appellants, and their predecessors in title, were willing to permit the two utility lines to overhang their property. However, on each occasion when Kentucky Utilities came upon the property to clear trees and shrubs, tresspass actions were promptly initiated. It is my opinion that the prescriptive right of Kentucky Utilities is thus confined to the right to overhang two lines across the tract of land. As this court has stated, “[a]n easement by prescription is limited by the purpose for which it is acquired and the use to which it is put for the statutory period.” Williams v. Slate, Ky., 415 S.W.2d 616 (1967). The easement “... will not ripen *582into a greater estate after the period of limitation has passed. The right is crystallized as to form during the waiting period and is of the nature of the use during that period.” Baker v. Maggard, Ky., 255 S.W.2d 45 (1953) (citations omitted).
To now permit Kentucky Utilities to come upon the land and destroy property appears to me an unreasonable expansion of rights incident to the prescriptive easement.
Therefore, I would reverse the Court of Appeals and affirm the judgment of the Harlan Circuit Court.