Herrera v. Roman Catholic Church

• Decision Date: 11 July 1991
• Docket Number: No. 10916,10916
• Citation: 1991 NMCA 89,819 P.2d 264,112 N.M. 717
• Parties: Craig L. HERRERA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, Archdiocese of Santa Fe, a Corporation Sole, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: Court of Appeals of New Mexico

Page 264

819 P.2d 264

112 N.M. 717

Craig L. HERRERA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, Archdiocese of Santa Fe, a Corporation Sole, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 10916.

Court of Appeals of New Mexico.

July 11, 1991.

[112 N.M. 718] Matthew L. Chacon, Espanola, for plaintiff-appellant.

William S. Keller, Santa Fe, for defendants-appellees Frances and Jose Tranquilino Martinez.

George M. Scarborough, Santa Fe, for defendants-appellees Orlando and Florence Martinez.

OPINION

DONNELLY, Judge.

Plaintiff, Craig L. Herrera, appeals from a final judgment upholding an easement by necessity in favor of defendants Jose Tranquilino and Frances Martinez, husband and wife, and Orlando and Florence Martinez, husband and wife (defendants) over lands owned by plaintiff. The single issue presented on appeal is whether the trial court erred in finding that defendants established an easement by necessity. We affirm.

This is the second appeal arising out of the same quiet title suit. During the initial trial, defendants admitted that plaintiff was the owner in fee simple of three adjoining parcels of land, described as Tracts A, B, and C in plaintiff's suit to quiet title. Defendants, however, counterclaimed, alleging the existence of an easement running from their home on an adjoining tract across plaintiff's property to a public highway. The issues involving the other named defendants, including the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, have been previously resolved.

In its original judgment, the trial court found that defendants were the owners of an express easement across plaintiff's property. Following an appeal, this court, in a memorandum decision, held that defendants failed to establish the existence of an express easement, but remanded the case to the trial court for entry of additional findings and conclusions to determine whether the evidence in the record supported defendants' alternative claim of an easement by necessity.

Following remand, the trial court entered an amended judgment on July 20, 1988, finding that defendants were the owners of an easement by necessity from their property across plaintiff's land to the Taos Highway (U.S. Highway 68). As shown by the record, plaintiff's property consists of three adjoining parcels; the land owned by defendants abuts the western edge of plaintiff's Tract A. The easement by necessity found by the court extends from defendants' land on the west, easterly across each of the three tracts owned by plaintiff to U.S. Highway 68. The land west of defendants' property belongs to the San Juan Pueblo and is swampy and inaccessible by vehicular traffic. The land north and south of the three tracts belonging to plaintiff is owned by third parties who were not joined in the lawsuit. Formerly, a dirt road referred to as El Camino Real extended from an area near defendants' land and ran north to San Juan Pueblo. The road, however, has been closed for many years and has never been accessible during the period that defendants have owned their property. In order to gain access from defendants' land to the area where the previous roadway existed, it was necessary to cross a portion of the lands now owned by plaintiff, which were formerly held by the same landowner who owned the tracts now belonging to both plaintiff and defendants. A prior lawsuit initiated by defendants, which sought to have declared a permanent right of access to and from their property across the lands of adjoining third parties, was dismissed with prejudice.

The trial court in the instant case determined that all of plaintiff's and defendants' lands were previously owned as a single unit by Tomas and Juanita Espinoza, the original patentees. The trial court's decision filed May 27, 1988, also determined that the chain of title of defendants was as follows: Juanita Espinoza and or Tomas Espinoza, to Manuel Borrego, to Celida Borrego Lopez, to Abedon and Gertrudes Borrego, to defendants; that at the time Abedon Borrego purchased what is now the lands of defendants, there was no access from the land to the north or to the south; that the only reasonable route for vehicular traffic in 1974, when defendants acquired the land from Abedon Borrego, was from their east boundary in common with the west boundary of plaintiff's Tract A, and then across Tracts A, C and B; and that neither plaintiff nor his predecessors in interest had previously taken any action to frustrate or foreclose defendants' use of an easement across the three tracts owned by plaintiff and which provided a means of access to defendants' land.

The trial court also found that the easement claimed by defendants follows a route from a public road on the east, westerly across plaintiff's Tracts B, C, and A to defendants' land adjoining plaintiff's Tract A on the west, and such route "is their only access to their land, and is reasonably necessary for them to enjoy ingress and egress to said land. Further, it relates to and concerns property which was commonly owned by Juanita and/or Tomas Espinoza."

Based upon its findings of fact the trial court concluded, among other things:

A reasonable necessity exists for the finding of an easement in favor of Defendants Martinez across Plaintiff's Tract B, then across Tract C and the bridge across the ditch, and then across the northern boundary of Tract A, to their land adjoining the western boundary of Plaintiff's Tract A. Further, the lands of Plaintiff and Defendants have a common grantor, and Defendants Martinez are owners of such an easement by necessity.

Do the facts in the instant case support the trial court's determination of the existence of an easement by necessity? We answer this question affirmatively.

Plaintiff does not contest any of the findings entered by the trial court or the existence of substantial evidence supporting these findings; instead, he challenges whether the trial court erred as a matter of law in adopting its conclusion of law that defendants had established an easement by necessity, and whether the findings of fact adopted by the trial court were sufficient to support the court's conclusions.

Easements may be created by express agreement, prescription or by implication. Kuhlman v. Rivera, 216 Mont. 353, 701 P.2d 982 (1985); Boyd v. McDonald, 81 Nev. 642, 408 P.2d 717 (1965). An easement by necessity arises from an implied grant or reservation of a right of ingress and egress to a landlocked parcel. Cf. Otero v. Pacheco, 94 N.M. 524, 612 P.2d 1335 (Ct.App.1980) (easement for sewer lines by implied reservation where there was reasonable necessity). Necessity for such easement arises from a presumption that, when a grantor conveys property, absent a clear indication to the contrary, the grantor is presumed to have intended to have reserved unto himself, or to have conveyed to his grantees, a means of access to the property in question, so that the land may be beneficially utilized. See Porter v. Griffith, 25 Ariz.App. 300, 543 P.2d 138 (1975); Wagner v. Fairlamb, 151 Colo. 481, 379 P.2d 165 (en banc), cert. denied, 375 U.S. 879, 84 S.Ct. 149, 11 L.Ed.2d 110 (1963); see also Otero v. Pacheco.

Whether an original landowner intended to convey or reserve an easement in order to provide access to a given tract is a question of fact to be determined from the terms of the conveyance and the surrounding circumstances. Hewitt v. Meaney, 181 Cal.App.3d 361, 226 Cal.Rptr. 349 (1986). See also Otero v. Pacheco. Generally, the law does not favor claims of easement and "the burden is on the party asserting such * * * claim to prove it clearly." Martinez v. Martinez, 93 N.M. 673, 676, 604 P.2d 366, 369 (1979) (Payne, J., dissenting). In Amoco Production Co. v. Sims, 97 N.M. 324, 326, 639 P.2d 1178, 1180 (1981) our supreme court stated:

A way of necessity can only arise where an owner of property severs a portion of his property and the portion retained or sold is cut off from access to a public route by the land from which it was severed. See Close v. Rensink, 95 Idaho 72, 501 P.2d 1383 (1972). The essential elements which must be proved include unity of title from which the dominant and servient estates are subsequently created. See, e.g., Wagner v. Fairlamb, 151 Colo. 481, 379 P.2d 165, cert. denied, 375 U.S. 879, 84 S.Ct. 149, 11 L.Ed.2d 110 (1963), and 2 G.W. Thompson, Commentaries on the Modern Law of Real Property, Secs. 362-368 (repl.1980).

Thus, to establish an easement by necessity, the proponent must show: (1) unity of title, indicating that the dominant and servient estates were owned as a single unit prior to the separation of such tracts, Brooks v. Tanner, 101 N.M. 203, 680 P.2d 343 (1984); (2) that the dominant estate has been severed from the servient tract, thereby curtailing access of the owner of the dominant...