Harrison v. Heald
| Decision Date | 07 June 1960 |
| Docket Number | No. 21,21 |
| Citation | 103 N.W.2d 348,360 Mich. 203 |
| Parties | Irene HARRISON, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Alvah H. HEALD and Mary B. Heald, Marvin A. Wintermeyer and Martha P. Wintermeyer, Walter Auerbach and Adele Auerbach, Defendants and Appellees. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Jack J. Garris, Bernard W. Butler, and James R. Hanson, Ann Arbor, for plaintiff and appellant.
James A. Crippen, Ann Arbor, for defendants and appellees.
Before the Entire Bench.
Presented is a question of easement by implied reservation of the right to use a 2-foot-wide sidewalk alongside plaintiff's house.
In 1910 a Mrs. Kapp owned a parcel of city residential property. She occupied what is referred to as the old house on the west side of the parcel. In that year she built a new house, now owned by plaintiff, on the east side of the parcel and caused the above mentioned sidewalk to be laid between the two houses, one foot from the side of the new house. It was the only outdoor means of access to the new house's coal chute, its side door leading to a stairway by which one could go either down to the basement or up to the kitchen, and its steps to the small back porch on which the back door opened.
When the new house and sidewalk were completed Mrs. Kapp moved into the new house and rented the old one to tenants. In 1912 she conveyed the property on which the old house stood to her son and daughter-in-law. The property was described in the deed of conveyance as the west 36 feet of the parcel. As it turned out, years later at the time this controversy commenced, that description included the land on which the sidewalk was located, and even a portion of the eaves of the new house overhung the line thus created between the two portions of Mrs. Kapp's original parcel. The old house property, so described, was conveyed from time to time thereafter, title finally coming to some of the defendants in this case.
Mrs. Kapp continued to occupy the so-called new house from 1910 until 1944. In 1947 she sold it to the grantee from whom title ultimately came down to plaintiff. During the 34 years of her occupancy of the new house Mrs. Kapp used the sidewalk as her own. Occupants of the old house also used it. There appears to have been no discussion about use of the walk during all of those years. The testimony is that Mrs. Kapp and her family kept the walk shoveled and swept and that occupants of the old house never did this or in any way took care of it, although they did so as to a walk and steps leading from it to their own house. Successors in title to the new house, including plaintiff, continued the use of the walk, as Mrs. Kapp had done before them, until 1955 when some of defendants, as owners of the old house property, razed that house, tore up the sidewalk and built an auto-wash building so close to the new house that it effectively sealed off and rendered unusable the coal chute, side door and steps from the back porch.
Plaintiff's bill of complaint sought restoration of the sidewalk and an easement, or, in the alternative, if that were deemed by the court to be impossible, a decree for damages for cost of reconstruction of the house necessitated by blocking access to its west side and to compensate for decline in value of her property as a result thereof. Plaintiff also asked damages for trespass and injunction against further trespass. From decree for defendants on the question of easement, plaintiff appeals.
It was the view of the trial court that Mrs. Kapp and her successor in title did not acquire a prescriptive easement by 45 years' use of the walk, because the use was mutual, permissive and not adverse.
It is clear that Mrs. Kapp caused the walk to be laid with the intent that it should serve as a permanent means of access to her coal chute, side door and back steps on the west side of...
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Tomecek v. Bavas
...by the grantor as distinct from an implied grant of an easement to the grantee. This distinction was eliminated in Harrison v. Heald, 360 Mich. 203, 103 N.W.2d 348 (1960), at least with regard to easements implied from a "quasi-easement," that is, an obvious and apparent servitude existing ......
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Kahn-Reiss, Inc. v. Detroit and Northern Sav. and Loan Ass'n
...a claim will be entitled to prevail where the reservation was clearly the manifest intention of the parties. Harrison v. Heald, 360 Mich. 203, 206--207, 103 N.W.2d 348 (1960). Additionally, an easement by implication arises out of strict necessity rather than 'mere convenience', and the pre......
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Appletree Mall Assocs., LLC v. Ravenna Inv. Assocs.
...von Meding v. Strahl, 319 Mich. 598, 30 N.W.2d 363, 369 (1948) (quotation omitted), overruled on other grounds by Harrison v. Heald, 360 Mich. 203, 103 N.W.2d 348 (1960), as explained in Schmidt v. Eger, 94 Mich.App. 728, 289 N.W.2d 851 (1980); see Kallas v. B & G Realty, 169 Wis.2d 412, 48......
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