Fort Payne Water Works Bd. v. Sparks
| Decision Date | 08 May 1992 |
| Parties | FORT PAYNE WATER WORKS BOARD v. Ronald D. SPARKS and Teresa R. Sparks. 1901978. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Charles A. McGee, Fort Payne, for appellee.
Plaintiff, the Water Works Board of the City of Fort Payne (hereinafter the "Board"), appeals from a declaratory judgment entered for the defendants. The Board sued Ronald D. Sparks and his wife, Teresa R. Sparks, seeking a judgment declaring valid a prohibitive easement appurtenant to certain real property that the Sparkses had purchased and enjoining the Sparkses from interfering with the easement. The Board also sought an order requiring the Sparkses to remove any structures violating the restrictions set forth in the easement. Following an ore tenus proceeding, the trial court entered a judgment for the Sparkses, and the Board appealed.
The first issue raised on this appeal is whether the trial court erred in holding that the Sparkses did not have constructive notice of the prohibitive easement, where the condemnation judgment in which the easement is contained was recorded in the minute book of the probate court. The second issue is whether the trial court, after finding that the Sparkses did not have constructive notice, erred in holding that, under the facts, the Sparkses did not have actual knowledge of the Board's rights under the easement prior to their purchase of the property. 1
As noted above, the trial court's findings as set forth in its judgment followed an ore tenus proceeding; therefore, the ore tenus rule is applicable in this case. Under the ore tenus rule, we presume that a judgment based on findings of fact made from ore tenus evidence is correct, and we will reverse only if it is found to be plainly and palpably wrong, after a consideration of all the evidence and after making all the inferences that can logically be made from the evidence. Adams v. Boan, 559 So.2d 1084 (Ala.1990).
The record reveals that in October 1984, the DeKalb Probate Court entered an order granting a petition for condemnation that had been filed by the Board. The order conveyed to the Board certain real property for use in expanding its water supply system. The order further granted the Board a prohibitive easement appurtenant to certain other property contiguous to that conveyed to the Board. Among other things, the easement prohibited the erection, use, or maintenance of any permanent building or structure within 300 feet of the 899-foot contour level as shown on the United States Geodetic Survey. The probate court's order granting the Board's condemnation petition was recorded in the minute book of the probate court, but was not filed for recordation in the real property records of the probate court until June 3, 1988.
In the early months of 1988, the Sparkses began negotiating with Jack E. Willingham and his wife, Sonya E. Willingham, for the purchase of real property to which the prohibitive easement was appurtenant. The negotiations, which took place through real estate agent Walter O. Summerville, resulted in the Sparkses' executing a purchase contract on one tract and an option to purchase an adjacent tract. The purchase contract made no reference to the setback restrictions or to the probate court's condemnation order. Furthermore, the deed conveying the property did not contain a notation of the prohibitive easement. Also, a title opinion and a survey of the property had been prepared to facilitate the transaction, but neither of them disclosed the existence of the easement.
Section 35-4-90, Ala.Code 1975, provides that all conveyances of real property are inoperative and void as to purchasers for a valuable consideration and without notice, unless recorded before the accrual of the right of such purchasers. Here, the Board argues that even though the judgment of condemnation was not filed for recordation in the real property records in the probate court until June 3, 1988, the recording requirement of § 35-4-90 was met prior to that time. Specifically, the Board contends that because the petition for condemnation was recorded in the final record of the probate court and the condemnation judgment was recorded in the probate minutes, the Sparkses had constructive notice of the prohibitive easement, and that the trial court erred in refusing to enforce the provisions of the easement.
In State v. Abbott, 476 So.2d 1224 (Ala.1985), this Court addressed an argument almost identical to that raised by the Board on this appeal. In Abbott, the State was seeking enforcement of a right-of-way that it had acquired through a 1939 condemnation proceeding. The defendants had purchased the property in 1965, and they argued that they had no notice of the existence of the right-of-way because the documents relating to the condemnation had not been recorded in the probate office at the time they purchased the property....
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Long v. Jefferson County
...did not constitute constructive notice to them of the existence of the county's easement. The plaintiffs rely on Fort Payne Water Works Board v. Sparks, 600 So.2d 230 (Ala.1992), a case factually similar to the present case, in support of their argument that the county's condemnation procee......
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Long v. Chicago Title Ins. Co.
...denied the Longs' motion for a new trial, after the Longs had conceded that Chicago Title was entitled under Fort Payne Water Works Board v. Sparks, 600 So.2d 230 (Ala.1992), to a judgment as a matter of law. In Fort Payne, this Court held that the Sparkses did not have constructive knowled......