H & F LAND v. PANAMA CITY-BAY CO. AIRPORT

• Decision Date: 10 June 1999
• Docket Number: No. 92,299.,92,299.
• Citation: 736 So.2d 1167
• Parties: H & F LAND, INC., Petitioner, v. PANAMA CITY-BAY COUNTY AIRPORT AND INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT, Respondent.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

736 So.2d 1167

H & F LAND, INC., Petitioner, v. PANAMA CITY-BAY COUNTY AIRPORT AND INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT, Respondent.

No. 92,299.

Supreme Court of Florida.

June 10, 1999.

Rowlett W. Bryant and Cecilia Redding Boyd of Bryant & Higby, Chartered, Panama City, Florida, and Thomas Sale, Jr., Panama City, Florida, for Petitioner.

Richard Smoak, Panama City, Florida, for Respondent.

ANSTEAD, J.

We have for review a decision on the following question certified to be of great public importance:

DOES THE MARKETABLE RECORD TITLE ACT, CHAPTER 712, FLORIDA STATUTES, OPERATE TO EXTINGUISH AN OTHERWISE VALID CLAIM OF A COMMON LAW WAY OF NECESSITY WHEN SUCH CLAIM WAS NOT ASSERTED WITHIN THIRTY YEARS?

H & F Land, Inc. v. Panama City-Bay County Airport, Indus. Dist., 706 So.2d 327, 328 (Fla. 1st DCA 1998). We have

jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. For the reasons that follow, we answer the certified question in the affirmative and hold that statutory or common law ways of necessity are subject to the provisions of the Marketable Record Title to Real Property Act ("MRTA").

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS TO DATE

Coastal Lands Inc. ("Coastal") once owned all of the land now owned by the parties in this case. On October 4, 1940, Coastal conveyed 390 acres of land it owned to Bay County, which in turn conveyed this acreage to the Panama City Airport Board on July 23, 1947. This land is now owned by respondent, Panama City-Bay County Airport and Industrial District, with the Panama City-Bay County International Airport currently operating on it. As a result of the 1940 transfer, a small piece of land retained by Coastal became both water- and landlocked. This small parcel of land, approximately eight-tenths of an acre, is located on a peninsula that abuts the Airport District's property. The parties agree that an implied common law way of necessity from this small parcel and over the Airport District's property was created as a result of the 1940 transaction between Coastal and Bay County. However, no notice of a claim to such a way of necessity was ever filed in the public records or asserted by use.

This small parcel was conveyed by Coastal to O.E. Hobbs on June 15, 1943, along with the remainder of the land originally retained by Coastal when it sold part of its property to Bay County. H & F Land, Inc. ("H & F") acquired this small parcel in 1992.¹

In 1996, some fifty-six years after any way of necessity would have been created, H & F filed a lawsuit and asserted for the first time that along with its acquisition of the small parcel, it also acquired a right to a way of necessity across the Airport District's land. In turn, Panama City filed a motion for summary judgment in that action, asserting that by operation of law, specifically Chapter 712, Florida Statutes (1993), MRTA, the way of necessity claimed by H & F had long been extinguished because the owners of the easement had failed to publicly assert a claim thereto. The trial court agreed and granted the motion. On appeal, the First District affirmed the grant of summary judgment, but certified the question set out above.

ANALYSIS

As noted above, the parties are in agreement that H & F and its predecessors in title were at one time entitled to a way of necessity by reason of the 1940 transaction, which left the small parcel now owned by H & F water- and landlocked. At issue today is the effect of MRTA on this way of necessity, now codified under the provisions of section 704.01(1), Florida Statutes (1995).² While numerous other states have adopted acts similar to MRTA, no other case has specifically addressed this issue.³ To analyze the issue, we must address two questions. First, whether a claim under a common law way of necessity is an interest in land subject to MRTA? And, second, if so, are there any exceptions in MRTA that apply to preserve the way of necessity despite the failure to assert a claim to this right within the time limitations provided in MRTA?

BACKGROUND OF MRTA AND SECTION 704.01

In landmark legislation fundamentally revamping Florida property law, the Florida Legislature adopted MRTA in 1963 for the purpose of simplifying and facilitating land title transactions. See § 712.10, Fla. Stat. (1995). MRTA was designed to simplify conveyances of real property, stabilize titles, and give certainty to land ownership. See City of Miami v. St. Joe Paper Co., 364 So.2d 439, 444 (Fla. 1978)

.

MRTA is based on the Model Marketable Title Act, which was proposed in 1960 with multiple objectives: (1) to limit title searches to recently recorded instruments only; (2) to clear old defects of record; (3) to establish perimeters within which marketability can be determined; (4) to reduce the number of quiet title actions; and (5) to reduce the costs of abstracts and closings. See Lori Tofflemire Moorhouse, Note, Marketable Record Title Act and Recording Act: Is Harmonic Coexistence Possible?, 29 U.Fla.L.Rev. 916, 923-24 (1977). In its essence, the Model Act sought to accomplish these objectives by providing that when a person has a record title to land for a designated duration, claims and interests in the property that stem from transactions before that period are extinguished unless the claimant seasonably records a notice to preserve his interest. See id. at 924. In much the same manner as the Model Act, MRTA's provisions contain a scheme to accomplish the same objective of stabilizing property law by clearing old defects from land titles, limiting the period of record search, and clearly defining marketability by extinguishing old interests of record not specifically claimed or reserved.

Section 712.02 of MRTA expressly provides that any person vested with any estate in land of record for thirty years or more shall have a marketable record title free and clear of all claims of an interest in land except those preserved by section 712.03:

Any person having the legal capacity to own land in this state, who, alone or together with his predecessors in title, has been vested with any estate in land of record for 30 years or more, shall have a marketable record title to such estate in said land, which shall be free and clear of all claims except the matters set forth as exceptions to marketability in § 712.03.

§ 712.02, Fla. Stat. (1995) (emphasis added). In construing this provision in Marshall v. Hollywood, Inc., 236 So.2d 114 (Fla.1970), this Court stated: "By the Marketable Record Title Act, any claim or interest, vested or contingent, present or future, is cut off unless the claimant preserves his claim by filing a notice within a 30-year period. If a notice is not filed, the claim is lost." Id. at 119 (quoting Catsman, The Marketable Record Title Act and Uniform Title Standards, § 6.2, in III Florida Real Property Practice (1965) (citation omitted)) (emphasis added). We must determine whether a claim to a common law way of necessity falls within the "all claims" language used in the statute and as interpreted expansively in Marshall.

WAY OF NECESSITY

A way of necessity is an easement that arises from an implied grant or implied reservation of an interest in land. See Dinkins v. Julian, 122 So.2d 620 (Fla. 2d DCA 1960)

. It is based upon the principle and assumption that whenever a party conveys property, he conveys whatever is necessary for the beneficial use of that property, but retains whatever is necessary for the beneficial use of the land he still holds. See Walkup v. Becker, 161 So.2d 893 (Fla. 1st DCA 1964). In Roy v. Euro-Holland Vastgoed, B.V., 404 So.2d 410 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981), the Fourth District cogently explained:

A way of necessity results from the application of the presumption that whenever a party conveys property he conveys whatever is necessary for the beneficial use of that property and retains whatever is necessary for the beneficial use of land he still possesses. Such a way is of common-law origin, and is presumed to have been intended by the parties. A way of necessity is also said to be supported by the rule of public policy that lands should not be rendered unfit for occupancy or successful cultivation.

Id. at 412 (quoting 25 Am Jur.2d, Easements and Licenses § 34, at 447-48). It is also important to note that an easement is more than a mere personal privilege; it is an interest in land. See Winthrop v. Wadsworth, 42 So.2d 541 (Fla.1949). Hence, it is an interest in the Airport District's land that H & F seeks to have recognized and enforced in these legal proceedings.

EFFECT OF MRTA

Based upon the unambiguous language in MRTA referring to "all claims" and the clear policy underlying MRTA, both of which clearly mandate that "any claim or interest" in property be publicly asserted and recorded, we find that MRTA indeed encompasses all claims to an interest in property, including ways of necessity, unless such claims are expressly excepted from MRTA's provisions. In fact, Florida appellate courts have consistently applied MRTA to easements and rights of way in situations similar to the one involved herein. See, e.g., City of Jacksonville v. Horn, 496 So.2d 204 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986)

(MRTA used to extinguish unrecorded public right of way that had never been used); Holland v. Hattaway, 438 So.2d 456 (Fla. 5th DCA 1983) (easement for access to a parcel of land is an estate in land and MRTA could be used to determine its marketability).

Importantly, this Court has upheld the extinguishment of interests in land under MRTA even where those interests were more clearly established and defined than those in question here. In Marshall, we held that MRTA operates to confer marketability to a recorded chain of title in land, even if the chain originates from a forged or a wild deed, so long as the strict recording requirements of MRTA are met. See 236 So.2d at 120. As a result, we concluded that a root of title based upon a forged deed would prevail even over an otherwise entirely valid deed recorded earlier in the chain of...