Wellberg Investments, LLC v. Greener Hills Subdivision ( 2014 )


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    2014 UT App 222
    _________________________________________________________
    THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS
    WELLBERG INVESTMENTS, LLC,
    Plaintiff and Appellant,
    v.
    GREENER HILLS SUBDIVISION , CHRISTENSEN MOUNTAIN
    PROPERTIES, AND DOROTHY CHRISTENSEN ,
    Defendants and Appellees.
    Memorandum Decision
    No. 20130043-CA
    Filed September 18, 2014
    Fourth District Court, Heber Department
    The Honorable Darold J. McDade
    No. 110500552
    Walter T. Keane, Attorney for Appellant
    Kraig J. Powell and Shawn W. Potter, Attorneys for
    Appellee Greener Hills Subdivision
    Clark R. Nielsen and Kathryn J. Steffey, Attorneys
    for Appellees Christensen Mountain Properties
    and Dorothy Christensen
    JUDGE JAMES Z. DAVIS authored this Memorandum Decision, in
    which JUDGES J. FREDERIC VOROS JR. and STEPHEN L. ROTH
    concurred.
    DAVIS, Judge:
    ¶1     Wellberg Investments, LLC appeals from the district court’s
    denial of its motion for summary judgment and its grant of
    summary judgment in favor of defendants Greener Hills
    Subdivision, Christensen Mountain Properties, and Dorothy
    Christensen (collectively, the Defendants). In granting summary
    judgment in favor of the Defendants, the district court determined
    Wellberg Investments v. Greener Hills Subdivision
    that Wellberg’s land is not benefitted by an express easement that
    Greener Hills granted to the Christensen defendants (the
    Easement). We affirm.
    ¶2     “Summary judgment is proper only when there is no
    genuine issue of material fact in dispute and the moving party is
    entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Canyon Meadows HOA v.
    Wasatch Cnty., 
    2001 UT App 414
    , ¶ 8, 
    40 P.3d 1148
    . “In deciding
    whether the trial court correctly granted judgment as a matter of
    law, we give no deference to the trial court’s view of the law; we
    review it for correctness.” SME Indus., Inc. v. Thompson, Ventulett,
    Stainback & Assocs., Inc., 
    2001 UT 54
    , ¶ 9, 
    28 P.3d 669
     (citation and
    internal quotation marks omitted).
    ¶3     “An easement is a ‘nonpossessory right to enter and use
    land in the possession of another and obligates the possessor not to
    interfere with the uses authorized by the easement.’” Marvin M.
    Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States, 
    134 S. Ct. 1257
    , 1265 (2014)
    (quoting Restatement (Third) of Prop.: Servitudes § 1.2(1) (1998));
    accord Alliant Techsystems, Inc. v. Salt Lake Cnty. Bd. of Equalization,
    
    2012 UT 4
    , ¶ 22 n.26, 
    270 P.3d 441
    . Because the grant of an
    easement is a transfer of an interest in real property, “[u]nder Utah
    law, easements must generally comply with the statute of frauds by
    being reduced to writing.” Green v. Stansfield, 
    886 P.2d 117
    , 122
    (Utah Ct. App. 1994). Here, the written Grant of Easement (the
    Easement Agreement) provides,
    This Grant of Easement and Right of Way is made
    and entered into this 20 day of October, 2000.
    Greener Hills L.L.C., . . . grants a right of way over
    and across the right of way between Lots 36, 37, 38,
    39, and 40 to the North boundary line of Greenerhills
    Subdivision for the benefit of Harold Christensen
    and Dorothy Christensen their assigns or heirs.
    ....
    A Non-Exclusive 50 foot wide easement for ingress,
    egress, storm drain, water system, sewer,
    20130043-CA                        2                
    2014 UT App 222
    Wellberg Investments v. Greener Hills Subdivision
    landscaping, irrigation, grading, public and private
    utilities, and emergency vehicle use purposes to be
    used in common with others for access to property to
    the north of Greenerhills . . . .
    ¶4     The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the
    Defendants based on their assertion that Wellberg could not claim
    any benefit under the Easement. The court relied on Potter v.
    Chadaz, 
    1999 UT App 95
    , 
    977 P.2d 533
    , for the premise that parties
    to a deed are prohibited “from expressly creating an easement in
    a land transaction for the benefit of a third party who is not
    involved in the transaction—i.e., a ‘stranger to the deed.’” See id.
    ¶ 12. The court identified Wellberg as a “stranger to the
    transaction” because it “is not named in the Easement Agreement,
    and did not participate in it in any way.” The district court
    concluded that as a “stranger to the transaction,” Wellberg was
    “not entitled to any right or title to, or interest in, the” Easement or
    the Defendants’ properties.
    ¶5      We agree with the district court’s ruling in favor of the
    Defendants, but we also agree with Wellberg’s contention that the
    district court’s reliance on Potter is misguided. Accordingly, we
    base our affirmance of the district court’s ruling on other grounds
    apparent on the record before us. See Okelberry v. West Daniels Land
    Ass’n, 
    2005 UT App 327
    , ¶ 11, 
    120 P.3d 34
     (“It is well established
    that we may affirm the judgment appealed from if it is sustainable
    on any legal ground or theory apparent on the record, even though
    such ground or theory differs from that stated by the trial court to
    be the basis of its ruling or action . . . .” (citation and internal
    quotation marks omitted)).
    ¶6      To interpret easements, we apply the same rules of
    construction used in interpreting contracts. Canyon Meadows, 
    2001 UT App 414
    , ¶ 7. Accordingly, we first look to the plain language
    of the Easement Agreement to discern the parties’ intent in creating
    the Easement, see Gillmor v. Macey, 
    2005 UT App 351
    , ¶ 19, 
    121 P.3d 57
    , because the parties’ intentions “are controlling,” Utah Transit
    20130043-CA                        3                
    2014 UT App 222
    Wellberg Investments v. Greener Hills Subdivision
    Auth. v. Salt Lake City S. R.R. Co., 
    2006 UT App 46
    , ¶ 8, 
    131 P.3d 288
    (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
    ¶7     The district court touched on aspects of a contract-based
    interpretation of the Easement Agreement, recognizing that
    Wellberg is not mentioned in the Easement Agreement, that there
    is no indication in the Easement Agreement that Wellberg
    participated in negotiating the Easement Agreement, and that
    Greener Hills and the Christensen defendants did not intend the
    Easement to benefit Wellberg. The court then relied on the
    “stranger to the transaction” principle from Potter to conclude that
    Wellberg’s absence from the face of the agreement renders it a
    stranger to the transaction and that, as a result, Wellberg “is not
    entitled to any right or title to, or interest in, the [Easement].”
    ¶8      This interpretation misapplies Potter, which explains, in
    dicta, that “Utah law prohibits parties from expressly creating an
    easement in a land transaction for the benefit of a third party who
    is not involved in the transaction—i.e., a ‘stranger to the deed.’”
    Potter, 
    1999 UT App 95
    , ¶ 12. Here we are not presented with a
    situation in which the parties creating the easement—the
    Defendants—attempted to “expressly” create an easement that
    would benefit Wellberg. Indeed, the crux of the parties’ dispute
    here is the scope the Defendants intended the Easement Agreement
    to have. In Potter, there was no question that the parties had
    intended to create an easement that benefitted a third party that
    was not involved in the land transaction. Thus Potter is
    inapplicable.1
    1. Because of the manner in which we resolve the issue on appeal,
    we do not need to address the precedential value of the “stranger
    to the deed” principle from Potter v. Chadaz, 
    1999 UT App 95
    , 
    977 P.2d 533
    , or our obligation to adhere to that principle as a matter of
    horizontal stare decisis. And to that end, we recognize that the
    requirement that this court adhere to precedent as a matter of
    (continued...)
    20130043-CA                       4                
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    Wellberg Investments v. Greener Hills Subdivision
    ¶9      Under basic rules of contract interpretation, we determine
    that the Defendants’ intent is unambiguously communicated in the
    Easement Agreement; their intent was to create an easement “for
    ingress, egress, storm drain, water system, sewer, landscaping,
    irrigation, grading, public and private utilities, and emergency
    vehicle use purposes” for the benefit of “Harold Christensen and
    Dorothy Christensen their assigns or heirs” and as a burden on
    specific lots within the Greener Hills Subdivision. Wellberg argues
    that the Easement Agreement need only contain “enough
    specificity to enforce it and the signatures of the servient estate
    owners” and that the Agreement’s language permitting “others
    access to property to the north of Greenerhills” is sufficiently
    specific for Wellberg, as an “other” property owner “north” of
    Greener Hills, to benefit from the Easement. (Emphases added.)
    ¶10 We construe the language in the Easement Agreement
    referencing “property to the north of Greenerhills” to encompass
    only the Christensen parcel; that parcel is the only property outside
    1. (...continued)
    horizontal stare decisis need not be applied with the same
    inflexibility as the requirements of vertical stare decisis. See State v.
    Menzies, 
    889 P.2d 393
    , 399 n.3 (Utah 1994) (recognizing that while
    “lower courts are obliged to follow the holding of a higher court,
    as well as any ‘judicial dicta’ that may be announced by the higher
    court,” “[h]orizontal stare decisis does not . . . require that a panel
    adhere to its own or another panel’s prior decisions with the same
    inflexibility as does vertical stare decisis”); see also Ewing v. Utah
    Dep’t of Transp., 
    2010 UT App 158
    , ¶ 13, 
    235 P.3d 776
     (“[I]n
    accordance with horizontal stare decisis, . . . [an appellate court]
    will overrule its own precedent in the limited circumstances where
    it is clearly convinced that the rule was originally erroneous or is
    no longer sound because of changing conditions and that more
    good than harm will come by departing from precedent.”
    (alterations and omission in original) (citation and internal
    quotation marks omitted)).
    20130043-CA                        5                 
    2014 UT App 222
    Wellberg Investments v. Greener Hills Subdivision
    of the subdivision that is referenced within the Easement
    Agreement and the only parcel that could logically be considered
    the dominant estate based on the Easement Agreement’s
    identification of the Christensen defendants as the dominant estate
    holders. Wellberg’s assertion that the reference “to property to the
    north of Greenerhills” must include its parcel because its parcel is
    also to the north of Greener Hills is untenable, particularly in light
    of the general rule that we should not construe an easement in a
    way that subjects the servient estate to a greater burden than
    “necessary to satisfy the purpose described in the grant [of the
    easement].” See Weggeland v. Ujifusa, 
    384 P.2d 590
    , 591 (Utah 1963).
    ¶11 Here, it is clear from the language of the Easement
    Agreement that the purpose of the Easement was to grant the
    Christensen defendants access to their piece of property that abuts
    Greener Hills on the subdivision’s northern border, not to grant
    any holder of property to the north of Greener Hills northbound
    access through Greener Hills or the Christensen parcel. Such an
    interpretation would expand the burden Greener Hills bargained
    for as the servient estate. Similarly, we do not interpret the word
    “others” in the Easement Agreement as impliedly granting
    Wellberg, or “other” property owners to the north or other
    property owners in general, any benefit or ownership right to
    access the Easement. This broad interpretation proposed by
    Wellberg would, again, impermissibly expand the burden on
    Greener Hills as the servient estate.
    ¶12 In conclusion, the Easement Agreement unambiguously
    demonstrates the Defendants’ intent that the Easement benefit only
    the Christensen defendants. We affirm the district court’s ruling.
    20130043-CA                       6                
    2014 UT App 222