Background
A recorded easement agreement gave the owners of several Butte County parcels permanent access over Canyon Creek Lane and required each owner to pay a proportional share of road-maintenance costs. Tanya Lorenz owned one of the benefited parcels. After she and her then-husband built a separate driveway to Highway 34, Lorenz stopped contributing to maintenance costs and, according to the plaintiffs, closed a gate near the easement and allowed overgrowth and waste to accumulate.
Jean Maher and Wayne Bratcher sued to extinguish Lorenz’s easement, alleging abandonment and lack of necessity. They also sought Lorenz’s share of maintenance expenses and asserted a nuisance claim based on allegations that Lorenz repeatedly shone a high-beam flashlight toward Maher’s residence. The circuit court granted summary judgment on extinguishment and nuisance, then awarded $6,750 in maintenance costs after trial.
The Court’s Holding
The South Dakota Supreme Court reversed the summary-judgment ruling that Lorenz had abandoned the express easement. Nonuse alone does not establish abandonment, and the plaintiffs’ own submissions left factual questions about Lorenz’s use of the easement, the gate’s effect on access, and whether the alleged conditions substantially interfered with ingress and egress. An alternative route to the highway may be evidence of abandonment, but is not dispositive.
The Court also held that necessity did not govern this express easement. The agreement did not condition Lorenz’s easement rights on her parcel being landlocked or on the absence of alternative access; the circuit court must dismiss the claim based on lack of necessity. The Court further reversed summary judgment on nuisance because the sparse evidence about flashlight use did not establish, as a matter of law, an intentional and substantial or unreasonable interference with property use. It affirmed the maintenance award because the agreement required Lorenz to contribute regardless of use, and Lorenz did not provide a trial transcript establishing error in the damages calculation.
Key Takeaways
- An express easement is controlled by its terms, not by whether it remains necessary.
- Abandonment requires evidence of intent and ordinarily presents a factual question; nonuse and alternate access are insufficient by themselves.
- An appellant challenging a damages award must provide an adequate record, including the relevant trial transcript.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the durability of recorded express easements and limits efforts to terminate them merely because a benefited owner has another means of access. It also distinguishes a property owner’s continuing maintenance obligation from the owner’s actual use of the easement.
The abandonment and nuisance claims return for further proceedings, while the $6,750 maintenance judgment remains intact.