Court Opinion

ID: 9549741
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:24:19.391508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:52.814748
License: Public Domain

Mallery, J.
(dissenting)—The right to the removal of an obstruction placed in the easement is an issue in this case. We are not here concerned with compatible use of easements. If we were, we should still not be able to hold logically that an obstruction, which prevents use, is a compatible use.
It is true the interest in land conveyed by an easement of any nature is nonexclusive. Other proper persons may use the easement for the purpose for which it was created, and such use is, of course, compatible as a matter of law. Still other uses, which do not interfere with the right created by the easement, may be compatible as a matter of fact, such as the early practice of pasturing stock in easements. But an interference with the purpose of an easement by placing obstructions in it can never be compatible and any use attributed to the obstruction is beside the point. This is for the simple reason that it constitutes a derogation from the grant.
The title to the grantee’s interest in an easement is not *412defeasible by his nonuse. It is as absolute as a fee-simple title to which it generally pertains. It need not be continuously exercised or at all. The right to a removal of an obstruction placed in an easement is absolute unless lost by adverse possession.
The theory of the majority that the test of an obstruction is purely subjective in that it exists as such only when some one is actually trying to use the easement destroys the grantee’s right to have the easement available and salable at all times, whether he uses it or not.
The majority rule is unworkable and without precedent. Any successor of the grantees will not be buying an available easement, only a law suit and a barren one at that, since, if there is a successor to the person creating the obstruction, he will have no personal liability for the damage caused by it.
I dissent.
Ott and Hunter, JJ., concur with Mallery, J.