Kehr, D. & T. v. Grissinger, L. & J. ( 2014 )

J.A22032/14
NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
DOUGLAS A. AND TAMMY J. KEHR : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT
LIVING TRUST : PENNSYLVANIA
:
Appellants :
:
v. :
:
:
LARRY W. AND JOYCE J. GRISSINGER, :
:
: No. 296 MDA 2014
Appeal from the Order Entered January 31, 2014
In the Court of Common Pleas of Huntingdon County
Civil Division No(s).: 2012-1117
BEFORE: PANELLA, SHOGAN, and FITZGERALD,* JJ.
MEMORANDUM BY FITZGERALD, J.: FILED NOVEMBER 24, 2014
Appellant, the Douglas A. Kehr and Tammy J. Kehr Living Trust,
appeals from the order entered in the Huntingdon County Court of Common
Pleas, which: (1) set aside its November 1, 2013 order granting Appellant an
easement by necessity over the land owned by Appellees, Larry W.
Grissinger and Joyce J. Grissinger; and (2) dismissed the action. We
reverse.
The trial court summarized the facts and procedural posture of this
case as follows:
*
Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court.
J. A22032/14
This action was filed by [Appellant] to obtain an
easement by necessity across the property of [Appellees].
The case was tried to the [c]ourt August 19, 2013. On
October 11, 2013, the [c]ourt granted [Appellant] the
relief [requested].
* * *
We rehearse here only the facts that are essential to
the issue on appeal. They are:
1. [Appellant] and [Appellees] own contiguous tracts of
real estate located in Springfield Township, Huntingdon
County, and Taylor Township, Fulton County,
Pennsylvania.
2. The two (2) properties were a part of a larger tract of
land warranted in the name of Jesse Head November 10,
1792, and subsequently acquired by Thomas Wilson.
3. Mr. Wilson conveyed seventy (70) acres of the property
in 1868 to Miles Brown.
4. [Appellees] own this tract today.
5. Thomas Wilson conveyed forty-one (41) acres to
[Appellant’s] predecessor in title Henry Wilson in 1880.
6. [Appellant’s] property is and has at all time since
it was conveyed to Henry Wilson landlocked as it is
without access to a public road.
Trial Ct. Op., 3/21/14, at 3 (emphasis added).
At trial Appellant called Kirby D. Lockard, a licensed land surveyor.
The parties accepted him as an expert. N.T., 8/19/13, at 2. He testified:
[Counsel for Appellant]: Did you . . . effect a title search
on and go back to the original warrants in this matter.
A: Yes.
-2-
J. A22032/14
* * *
This is a copy from the Pennsylvania Historic Museum
Commission’s website of the Jesse Head warrant.
* * *
Q: . . . When you researched this, which parcel came out
of the warrant first?
A: [Appellees’] tract.
* * *
Q: [Appellees’ tract] and that was conveyed to whom on
what date?
A: To Miles Brown, March 26, 1868.
Q: And then what parcel came out second?
A: [Appellant’s] tract, which was to Henry Wilson in 1880.
THE COURT: . . . [W]ho was the grantor in those two
deeds?
THE WITNESS: Thomas Wilson was the common
grantor.
N.T. at 10, 11, 12.
Appellant contends that “counsel stipulated on the record that unity of
title existed with respect to the parties properties.” Appellant’s Brief at 15.
The trial court also refers to the following exchange which occurred at trial
as a “stipulation.” See Mem., 10/11/13, at 10.
The Court: [Counsel] do you have any argument that
there was, in fact, unity of title in Thomas Wilson?
[Counsel for Appellees]: No, Your Honor.
-3-
J. A22032/14
The Court: So the requirement that [Appellant] prove
unity of title has been met?
[Counsel]: That particular element.
The Court: What did you say?
[Counsel]: That’s one element, yes.
Id. at 14.
Mr. Lockard testified that the property was landlocked.
Q: Did you find any grant of right─of─way to [Appellant’s]
property?
A: No.
* * *
[Counsel for Appellant]: [Mr. Lockard], at the time of the
severance of [Appellees’] property from the larger
tract, did [Appellant’s] property become landlocked
at that point in time?
A: It had no access to a public road, yes.
Q: And we’ve already gone over it that McKinley Road[1] is
the closest public road─township road to the property?
A: Yes.
Q: Now there’s been a lot of talk about coming in from
what they call the lower road, the lower Woods Road. Are
you familiar with that?
A: Yes.
* * *
1
The notes of testimony also refer to this road as McKinleyville Road. See
N.T. at 23.
-4-
J. A22032/14
The Court: And that road would appear to go on to
[Appellant’s] property, is that correct?
The Witness: Yes.
[Counsel for Appellant]: But now to get to that road and to
get into [Appellant’s] property, do you have to traverse
someone else’s property as well beyond [Appellees’]
property?
A: . . .Well, [sic] wouldn’t cross [Appellees’] property at
that location. Only the Price property.
Q: To get in that way you would have to go over the Price
property, is that correct?
A: Yes.
N.T. at 14, 18-19.
On November 1, 2013, the court entered an order providing:
[Appellant] is entitled to an easement by necessity over
the land owned by [Appellees]. It is further ORDERED,
DIRECTED, AND DECREED that said easement shall be
twenty-five (25) feet in width, and said easement shall
provide access to [Appellant’s] property off of McKinleyville
Road and over and across [Appellees’] property at the
“Upper Woods Road” location as depicted on the survey
prepared by Kirby D. Lockard, Registered Professional Land
Surveyor, dated May 9, 2007. Said survey depicting the
location of [Appellant’s] easement by necessity is hereby
incorporated into this Order.
Order, 11/1/13.
Appellees filed a motion for post-trial relief. A hearing was held on
December 16, 2013. On January 31, 2014, the court entered the following
order: “It is ordered that the prior order entered in this case on November
-5-
J. A22032/14
1, 2013 is set aside and vacated. Judgment is entered in this case in favor
of [Appellees]. The action is dismissed.” Order, 1/31/14.
This timely appeal followed. Appellant filed a timely court-ordered
Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement of errors complained of on appeal and the trial
court filed a responsive opinion.
Appellant raises the following issues for our review:
I. Whether the trial court erred in determining that
[Appellant] did not establish all three (3) elements for the
establishment of an easement by necessity over
[Appellees’] property?
II. Whether the trial court erred in refusing to accept the
stipulations of fact which were stipulated to by counsel at
the time of trial, and which were accepted and adopted by
the trial court at the time of trial?
Appellant’s Brief at 4.
Appellant argues the trial court erred in determining that all three
elements for the establishment of an easement by necessity over Appellees’
property were not established. Id. at 12. Appellant avers that it is
undisputed that both properties were once part of a single tract of land and
thus unity of title was satisfied. Id. Appellant contends the unity of title
was severed by the conveyance by Thomas Wilson to Miles Brown in 1868.
Id. at 12-13. Appellant claims an easement by necessity is established
because Appellant’s property is landlocked and there is no access to it from
a public road. Id. at 13. Furthermore, Appellant contends the trial
-6-
J. A22032/14
court erred in finding that there was no unity of ownership based upon the
stipulation between the parties at the time of trial. Id. at 15-16.
Our standard of review in matters of equity is the following:
[A]ppellate review of equity matters is limited to a
determination of whether the chancellor committed
an error of law or abused his discretion. The scope
of review of a final decree in equity is limited and will
not be disturbed unless it is unsupported by the
evidence or demonstrably capricious.
Phillippi v. Knotter, 748 A.2d 757, 758 (Pa. Super. 2000) (citation
omitted).
“It is a well-settled principle of law that, in the event
property is conveyed and is so situated that access
to it from the highway cannot be had except by
passing over the remaining land of the grantor, then
the grantee is entitled to a way of necessity over the
lands of his grantor.” The three fundamental
requirements for an easement by necessity to arise are the
following:
1) The titles to the alleged dominant and
servient properties must have been held by one
person.
2) This unity of title must have been severed by
a conveyance of one of the tracts.
3) The easement must be necessary in order for the
owner of the dominant tenement to use his land,
with the necessity existing both at the time of
the severance of title and at the time of the
exercise of the easement.
Id. at 760 (citation omitted and emphasis added), cited with approval in
Youst v. Keck's Food Service, Inc., 94 A.3d 1057, 1075 (Pa. Super.
2014).
-7-
J. A22032/14
In Phillippi, the parties owned “two distinct parcels of land that at one
time were a single parcel owned by O’Brien Coal Company [(“O’Brien”)].”
Phillippi, 748 A.2d at 759. On August 19, 1910, O’Brien conveyed one
section of the property to the Connellsville and State Line Railroad Company.
Id. On August 25, 1917, O’Brien conveyed a parcel of the remaining land to
E.J. O’Brien. Id. The appellants eventually became the owners of the E.J.
O’Brien parcel. Id. “Eventually [the] appellees became the owners of [the]
parcel of land once owned by O’Brien. . . .” Id.This Court in Phillippi found that the first two fundamental
requirements for an easement by necessity were established. There was
unity of title between the property of the appellants and appellee. The unity
of title was severed when O’Brien conveyed the property now owned by the
appellants to E.J. O’Brien. Id. at 760-61. The Phillippi Court then
addressed the third requirement, specifically whether there existed an
easement by necessity. Id. at 761. This Court found there was no
easement by necessity:
From the time of the original severance to the
present, the western portion of the land currently
owned by appellants has been accessible from a
public road. Therefore, the situation caused by the
original severance was not that of strict necessity in
which property was conveyed in such a way that access to
it from a public road could not be had except by passing
over the remaining land of the grantor.
Id. (footnotes omitted and emphasis added).
-8-
J. A22032/14
We address issues one and two together because they are interrelated.
In the case sub judice, the trial court originally found that Appellant was
entitled to an easement by necessity. Subsequently, the court concluded
that Appellant had not established an easement by necessity because the
first fundamental requirement for an easement by necessity was not
satisfied, based upon the conveyance of one of the tracts. Id. at 6.
The court opined:
[F]urther reflection brought about by [Appellees’] Post-
Trial Motion and additional research caused us to change
our mind. In this regard, the critical fact in our opinion
that defeats [Appellant’]s case is that at the time their
property was carved out of the land warranted to Jesse
Head, their grantor─Thomas Wilson─had already sold off
the property now owned by [Appellees]. . . . Therefore,
while it is true that there was unity of ownership of the
properties in this case during the ownership of Thomas
Wilson, that unity was destroyed when Mr. Wilson
conveyed the seventy (70) acre parcel to Miles Brown.
Trial Ct. Op., 3/21/14, at 5. We find the court erred as a matter of law in
vacating the November 1, 2013, order. See Phillippi 748 A.2d at 758.
In the instant case, the properties of Appellant and Appellees were
owned by Thomas Wilson. Mr. Lockard testified that Thomas Wilson was
the common grantor. N.T. at 12. At trial, Appellee’s counsel conceded that
the requirement that Appellant prove unity of title had been met. Id. at 14;
see Phillippi, 748 A.2d at 761.
In Phillippi, this Court found that unity of title was severed by the
conveyance of one tract. Id. at 761. Similarly, in the instant case, unity of
-9-
J. A22032/14
title was severed by the conveyance of one tract. See N.T. at 12. Thus,
the second requirement for an easement by necessity has been met. See
Phillippi, 748 A.2d at 761.
In order to find that the third prong is established, we must determine
whether an easement by necessity exists. “An easement by necessity may
be created when after severance from adjoining property, a piece of land is
without access to a public highway.” Bodman v. Bodman, 321 A.2d
910, 912 (Pa. 1974); accord Phillippi, 748 A.2d at 761.
Instantly, at trial, Mr. Lockard, when asked if Appellant’s property was
landlocked, responded that Appellant’s property had no access to a public
road. N.T. at 18. Thus, the third requirement for an easement by necessity
has been satisfied. See Bodman, 321 A.2d at 912; Phillippi, 748 A.2d at
761.
We find that the three pronged test enunciated in Phillippi has been
satisfied. See id. at 760. We thus hold the trial court abused its discretion
and erred as a matter of law in vacating its November 1, 2013 order
granting Appellant an easement by necessity over the land owned by
Appellees. See id. at 758. We reverse the January 31, 2014 order.
Order reversed.
- 10 -
J. A22032/14
Judgment Entered.
Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 11/24/2014
- 11 -