Martin v. Simmons Props., LLC.

• Decision Date: 16 January 2014
• Docket Number: SJC–11325.
• Citation: 2 N.E.3d 885,467 Mass. 1
• Parties: Clifford J. MARTIN v. SIMMONS PROPERTIES, LLC.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

467 Mass. 1
2 N.E.3d 885

Clifford J. MARTIN
v.
SIMMONS PROPERTIES, LLC.

SJC–11325.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts,
Suffolk.

Submitted Sept. 9, 2013.
Decided Jan. 16, 2014.

[2 N.E.3d 888]

Clifford J. Martin, pro se.

Joseph P. Mingolla, Woburn, for the defendant.

Martin J. Newhouse, Boston, & John Pagliaro, for New England Legal Foundation & another, amici curiae, submitted a brief.

Diane C. Tillotson, for Real Estate Bar for Massachusetts & another, amici curiae, submitted a brief.

Present: IRELAND, C.J., SPINA, CORDY, GANTS, DUFFLY, & LENK, JJ.

LENK, J.

In this case involving registered land, we consider, among other things, the effect of a reduction by the owner of the servient estate in the dimensions of an easement created for the purpose of permitting the easement holder access to a lot that otherwise has no direct access from a public way. We must determine whether the dimensions of such an easement, defined by reference to a Land Court plan, may be modified by the servient land holder so long as the purposes for which the easement was created are not frustrated, and the utility of the easement is not lessened.¹ We conclude that there is no meaningful distinction for purposes of such an analysis between an easement on recorded land and an easement on registered land held pursuant to a Land Court certificate of

[2 N.E.3d 889]

title. Confirming and expounding upon our adoption of the Restatement (Third) of Property (Servitudes) § 4.8(3) (2000) (Restatement) in M.P.M. Bldrs., LLC v. Dwyer, 442 Mass. 87, 809 N.E.2d 1053 (2004)( M.P.M.Builders ), we affirm the decision of the Land Court judge that the width of the easement properly may be reduced as the defendant has done here, since the plaintiff does not dispute that at all times he has been able to use the remaining unobstructed portion of the easement for the purpose of travel to and from his parcel.

1. Background and prior proceedings. We recite the facts based on the detailed findings of the trial judge. For the most part, the facts are undisputed. In 1969, Clifford J. Martin purchased a parcel of land of approximately one-third acre on the Medford–Somerville line, in an industrial-commercial district. Like all the lots on that block, Martin's title to the parcel is held under a transfer certificate of title issued by the Land Court when the property was divided and title was transferred from single ownership. The parcel, known as 200–R (rear) Boston Avenue, and designated lot 3A on Land Court Plan No. 6199J (J–Plan), was registered by the Land Court in 1940, when the J–Plan was created; ² the parcel abuts the Boston and Maine Railroad to the northeast, and has no direct access to a public way. When Martin acquired lot 3A, it was occupied by a three-story, wooden structure containing heavy equipment; that building burned to the ground in 1991. Since that time, other than to move some fill and debris into the foundation hole of the burned building, Martin has not made use of the property, which has remained vacant.

According to the transfer certificate of title, lot 3A is “subject to and has the benefit of” eight easements, including an easement for travel over lots 4A, 10 and 12 ³ (Way A) as indicated on the J–Plan. Way A runs northeast from Boston Avenue, a public way, to the property line of the Boston and Maine Railroad, passing between the buildings numbered 196 Boston Avenue on lot 4A and 200 Boston Avenue on lot 10. Way A is bounded to the north by lots 9 and 4A, and to the south by lots 1B, 10, and 12. At the southwest corner of a now-demolished building shown on the J–Plan, which was attached to the building now standing at 196 Boston Avenue, Way A takes a ninety-degree turn to the north, where it meets the southern boundary of lot 3A. The width of Way A as shown on the J–Plan fluctuates along its length. In its current configuration, with the acknowledged encroachments, Way A is twenty-eight feet wide at the entrance from Boston Avenue and is at no point along its length less than nineteen feet in width. Lot 3A is benefited

[2 N.E.3d 890]

also by a number of other easements pertaining to sewer pipes, sprinkler pipes, water pipes, other utility pipes, and storm drains.

Three of the lots over which Way A extends, lots 4A, 10, and 12, were also issued certificates of title by the Land Court in 1940, following a conveyance that year by the Textile Realty Company to the Russell Box Company. See note 2, supra. Lot 4A is to the southwest of lot 3A, and lots 10 and 12 are to the southeast of lot 4A. Simmons Properties, LLC (Simmons), has held title to these lots, as well as to lot 1A, to the southwest of lot 4A, since 1993. When Simmons acquired its parcels, a large primary building (196 Boston Avenue) stood on lot 4A, with two square, smaller buildings attached to the larger structure. Sprinkler pipes and sewer pipes in the basement of the northeast building ran underground and into the basement of the three-story wooden building which stood on lot 3A, where they connected to pipes in that building.

Lot 4A is benefited (as is lot 3A) by an easement designated Way E on the J–Plan, which intersects with Way A; this easement runs northwest along the northern boundary of lot 4A and the southern boundary of lot 3A. According to the J–Plan, most of Way E is located on lot 3A, although a portion of Way E is located on lot 4A. At the time of its approval by the Land Court in 1940, and as shown on the J–Plan, Way E was covered in part, but not completely, by a raised wooden platform; that platform no longer exists.

Immediately after its acquisition of lots 4A, 10, and 12, Simmons made a number of alterations to these parcels. It demolished the two smaller buildings, indicated on the J–Plan, that had been attached to the building now known as 196 Boston Avenue. It also refurbished the buildings at 196 and 200 Boston Avenue. At 196 Boston Avenue, Simmons installed an entrance foyer adjacent to an elevator shaft that has been attached to the building since before 1940,⁴ and installed a depressed loading dock adjacent to the elevator shaft. At 200 Boston Avenue, Simmons installed a depressed stairwell with a canopy and handrail, created marked parking spaces running along the building, and installed a parking deck on lot 12. Simmons also placed fill along Way A and resurfaced it with asphalt, altering its grade and covering certain storm drains, indicated on the J–Plan, that had existed previously. It is undisputed that all of these improvements protrude to some extent into Way A.

In August, 2007, Martin, acting pro se, filed a complaint in the Land Court asserting fifteen separate acts of encroachment upon or ongoing acts of interference with his right to use the easement over Way A, as well as interference with the various sewer, water, sprinkler, utility, and storm drain easements appurtenant to lot 3A. In addition to the encroachments placed in Way A by Simmons's 1993 renovations of the buildings at 196 and 200 Boston Avenue, Martin challenged the placement of curbing and landscaping at the entrance to Way A where it meets Boston Avenue and along its length, the placement of utility poles near the entrance from Boston Avenue, and the placement of fill along Way A, on lot 3A, and on an area adjacent to Way E known as the “unhatched area.” ⁵ He maintained that Simmons had interfered

[2 N.E.3d 891]

with his rights to use the storm drains by paving over the drains indicated on the J–Plan and relocating them elsewhere on its parcels, and interfered with his rights to use the sewer pipes, sprinkler pipes, and water pipes by dismantling or destroying the connections that ran from the former wooden structure on lot 3A to those pipes when it demolished the two smaller buildings on lot 4A. He claimed also that he had a right of passage over the “unhatched area,” a portion of land belonging to Simmons, south and east of Way E, and that Simmons's right of passage over Way E had been extinguished.

In 2008, Martin and Simmons filed cross-motions for summary judgment. After a hearing in July, 2008, a Land Court judge, who was also the trial judge, allowed in part and denied in part each of the parties' motions in January, 2009.⁶ Following a two-day trial in August, 2009, the judge took a view of the locus. Four witnesses testified at trial; Martin testified on his own behalf and introduced testimony by Marc Knittle, leasing property manager for Cummings Properties, an affiliate of Simmons. Simmons offered testimony by Dennis Clarke, president and chief executive officer of Cummings Properties, and Richard Benevento, a traffic engineering expert and chairman of the parking and traffic commission for the city of Beverly.

The judge suspended closing arguments in order to allow both sides to file posttrial memoranda and proposed findings of fact and rulings of law (including a late filing by Martin to which Simmons subsequently filed a response). Closing arguments ultimately took place in December, 2009, and in April, 2011, the judge issued a detailed and thorough written decision, finding for Simmons on all claims.

The judge concluded that, although Simmons had made certain encroachments into Way A as a result of the work on the buildings at 196 and 200 Boston Avenue and other contemporaneous improvements to its parcels, and although other encroachments on Way A had existed before Simmons's acquisition of its lots, Way A “functions fully adequately for passage by all current trucks and other vehicles”; ⁷ moreover, Martin conceded that at no time had he been unable to access lot 3A by traveling over Way A. Thus, Simmons had no present obligation to remove any of the encroachments. The judge found also that Martin had no easement rights over the unhatched area, as it was not indicated on the court-approved J–Plan, and no evidence had been introduced showing mutual mistake such as would support reformation of the plan. The judge concluded further that Simmons's rights to...