Metcalf v. Houk, 76A05-9310-CV-374

• Decision Date: 20 December 1994
• Docket Number: No. 76A05-9310-CV-374,76A05-9310-CV-374
• Citation: 644 N.E.2d 597
• Parties: Richard METCALF and Peter E. Keck, Appellants-Defendants, v. Sherie Lee Hampshire HOUK, Appellee-Plaintiff.
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

Page 597

644 N.E.2d 597

Richard METCALF and Peter E. Keck, Appellants-Defendants, v.Sherie Lee Hampshire HOUK, Appellee-Plaintiff.

No. 76A05-9310-CV-374.

Court of Appeals of Indiana Fifth District.

Dec. 20, 1994.

C. David Peebles, Fort Wayne, for appellant.

Larry J. Burke, Fort Wayne, for appellee.

OPINION

RUCKER, Judge.

This case involves a dispute over an easement.The issue presented is whether the conveyance of an easement appurtenant that expressly grants "ingress and egress" over the grantor's property "to the water's edge" contemplates the right of the easement holders to build, maintain and use a pier at the lake end of the easement on the servient parcel.The trial court determined that it did not and granted a permanent injunction in favor of the servient owner.Owners of the easement now appeal.

Affirmed in part and reversed in part.

In 1990, Plaintiff-AppelleeSherie Lee Hampshire Houk(Houk) purchased a home in the Phillips Bay subdivision located in Steuben County, Indiana.The home was located on one of several lots bordered on one side by Lake James and was subject to a non-exclusive easement for ingress and egress over portions of a roadway extending to the lake shoreline.The easement was granted by the subdivision developers in 1978 for the benefit of home owners who did not own lake front property.Defendants-AppellantsRichard Metcalf and Peter E. Keck(referred to collectively as Easement Holders) purchased homes in the Phillips Bay Subdivision in 1982 and 1987 respectively.Neither of their homes was located on property bordered by the lake.Exercising what they believed were rights conferred by a "Grant of Easement," Metcalf and Keck occasionally parked cars on a paved portion of the roadway leading to Lake James, attached a moveable pier to a seawall on Houk's property, and placed their boats in the Lake tying them to the pier.

When Easement Holders refused to cease parking cars along the roadway and to remove the pier, Houk filed suit.After a bench trial, the trial court found that the Grant of Easement did not include the activity in which Easement Holders were engaging because it would materially impair the use of the easement by others with land-locked property.Accordingly, the trial court entered judgment permanently enjoining Easement Holders from parking vehicles on the easement property other than for the purpose of loading and unloading persons and personal property, from driving motor vehicles on the roadway leading to the lake shore, from storing personal property, including boats and pier sections, on the easement property, and from installing a pier or dock in the water of Lake James at the eastern terminus of the easement.Upon motion by Easement Holders, the trial court entered special findings and conclusions in support of its judgment.This appeal ensued in due course.

We first observe that none of the fifteen findings entered by the trial court has been attacked on appeal.Indeed, Easement Holders specifically state, "We do not disagree with Judge Tubergen's findings of fact....[W]e adopt them, as far as they go.However, they are not quite complete, so we will expand upon them...."Brief of Appellantat 9.Because the trial court entered the specific findings and conclusions under the provisions of Ind.Trial Rule 52(A), we may not search the record for additional evidence to support findings the trial court did not make or to expand upon findings that were made.Rather, we must determine whether the trial court's findings are sufficient to support the judgment.Toskos v. Swank (1991), Ind.App., 578 N.E.2d 712, trans. denied.As we have often written, when the trial court's judgment is based upon special findings of fact, we will not reverse the judgment unless the findings and conclusions drawn from them are clearly erroneous.A judgment is clearly erroneous when it is unsupported by the conclusions drawn, and the conclusions are clearly erroneous when they are unsupported by the findings of fact.Findings of fact are clearly erroneous when the record lacks any facts or reasonable inferences to support them.McIntyre v. Guthrie (1992), Ind.App., 596 N.E.2d 979, trans. denied;Donavan v. Ivy Knoll Apartment Partnership (1989), Ind.App., 537 N.E.2d 47.We do not reweigh evidence, and we will affirm the trial court's decision unless the evidence, when viewed in a light most favorable to the judgment, points uncontrovertibly to an opposite conclusion.Id.

Easement Holders contend the trial court erred in determining that the right of ingress and egress did not include: (a) the right to park motor vehicles on the easement property, (b) the right to drive motor vehicles on the paved portion of the roadway leading to the lake, (c) the right to store personal property, including boats and pier sections on the easement property and, (d) the right to install a pier or dock in the lake at the end of the easement.According to Easement Holders, the right to engage in the foregoing activity depends on the intent of the easement grantors at the time the Grant of Easement was made.The argument continues that there was sufficient evidence before the trial court demonstrating that Houk's predecessor-in-title intended that land owners whose property did not border on the lake would enjoy the same rights with regard to the lake as those with shoreline property, including the installation of a pier or dock.

Generally an easement for ingress and egress confers only the right to pass over the land and not to control the real estate or install improvements.Hagemeier v. Indiana & Michigan Electric Company (1983), Ind.App., 457 N.E.2d 590, 594.However, this general proposition fails, and dominant owners of lakeside easements may gain the right to erect and maintain piers, moor boats and the like, where express language in the instrument creating the easement so provides.Klotz v. Horn (1990), Ind., 558 N.E.2d 1096, 1097-98, referencing Maddox v. Katzman (1982), Iowa App., 332 N.W.2d 347(lot owners in platted subdivision given the express right to construct private docks);Strevell v. Mink(1958), 176 N.Y.S.2d 901, 6 A.D.2d 350, aff'd(1959), 6 N.Y.2d 850, 160 N.E.2d 89, 188 N.Y.S.2d 557(deed expressly provided for "a right of way ... 10 feet wide and also sufficient land on the shore of said lake for a boat house, and dock").If the instrument is silent concerning the specific rights of the easement holder, then the trial court may allow extrinsic or parol evidence to ascertain the intent of the parties who created the easement.Klotz, 558 N.E.2d at 1098.

In this case an instrument captioned "Grant of Easement" creating the easement in favor of the dominant estate provides in relevant part:

"The undersigned, Hermon Phillips and Louise E. Phillips, husband and wife ... hereby grant a non-exclusive easement for ingress and egress over the following described real estate in Steuben County,...