New Easement Case - Hansen v Sandridge Partners

[Ian Wilson]

Great new decision out this morning. Very well written treatise on the requirements of adverse possession, prescriptive easements and equitable easements.

This case throws some heavy shade on Otay Water District v Beckwith, a case I have always scratched my head over.

This is a must read for boundary surveyors.

I've included the AP Map and the Record of survey that covers the property. While they are not critical to the case, they clearly show the reason for the case in the first place...property bisected by railroads and other objects that prevent the fee owner from crossing from one part of the property to the other.

Enjoy!

Ian

[steffan]

Good case for follow up discussion on a surveyor’s role and limitations upon discovery.

[dedkad]

Interesting. Thanks for posting.

[Proud7191]

Satellite and street view adds clarity for us simpletons. The tax map had me looking at the r/r r/w and added confusion until I went to satellite view. Thanks for posting, great stuff. Jp

[hellsangle]

Good idea, Proud!

Hope I got it right . . .

Phil Sonoma

[steffan]

So, unless this case is appealed and heard by the Supreme Court, there is a state of conflict in the law regarding whether certain uses (such as orchards and reservoirs) are considered exclusive thereby prohibiting claims of prescriptive right. Being as there is no horizontal stare decisis in California, no appellate court is bound by either this ruling or the Otay Water District v Beckwith ruling. Even more important is that no trial court is bound by either ruling now that there is a conflict in this element of law.

[Ian Wilson]

I get your point, Jeff. And it is a good one.

On the other hand, as with a reservoir or a pistachio orchard, how you the titled owner go about using the land? It’s rather like the closed, locked garage in the Blackmore decision [Blackmore v. Powell (2007) 150 Cal.App4th 1593]. The water and the trees make it hard to use the property for another use.

A lesser crop, such as an annual such as alfalfa, while still preventing the titled owner from using the property for as much as year before taking it back to use for some other purpose.

When Blackmore came out, there were cries that easements as we know them in California are ended. That didn’t happen. At the time, I commented that Blackmore was actually a reasonable refinement relative to easements, particularly to equitable ones.

“The trial court further concluded that respondent was entitled to exclusive use of the garage as “a necessary incident” of the easement, reasoning that a shared garage would generate disputes about allocation of parking spaces, security, and maintenance costs.   In view of the evidence presented at trial, we see no error in the determination that nonexclusive use of the garage would interfere unreasonably with respondent's rights.”

Similarly, I do not see this as being a destruction of the prescriptive or equitable easements, but a refining of the Courts deliberate thinking. An easement is the right to use the land of another. There are a few cases where that easement is so complete that it approaches that of a fee. Hansen v Sandridge improves the definition of those instances.

The court in Otay Water [Otay Water Dist. v. Beckwith (1991) 1 Cal.App.4th 1041, 1048, 3 Cal.Rptr.2d 223] claimed that, because the Water District was limited to using the property in question only for reservoir purposes, it didn’t amount to barring the owner from using it for another purpose. I have always wondered what other purpose the Otay Water Court contemplated.

As far as establishing stare decisis in any direction, that often hangs on the ability of the attorney to argue the issue at hand and how the precedent applies or does not. From my read of the case at hand, it is a case study defining the requirements for such easements.

Stare decisis is Latin for “standing by decisions”. Vertical stare decisis is the imposition of a decision of a higher court on a lower court. The horizontal variety is the imposition of the decision on other decisions by the court at the same level.

[steffan]

I appreciate your perspective on this Ian. I have to think that conflict does exist between these decisions, elements of which cannot coexist in parallel in part based on the 5th District's portion of the opinion which states: "As a result, the "easement" in Otay was the practical equivalent of an estate and should only have been permitted upon satisfaction of the elements of adverse possession."
In this portion of the opinion, the 5th District flat out declares the 4th District's Otay decision to be in error. In effect the 5th District ruled not only on the exclusive nature of pistachio orchards but on reservoirs also. And I dare say beyond both pistachio orchards and reservoirs.