Ondis v. City of Woonsocket ex rel. Treas.

• Decision Date: 09 November 2007
• Docket Number: No. 2004-285-Appeal.,2004-285-Appeal.
• Citation: 934 A.2d 799
• Parties: Gordon F.B. ONDIS v. CITY OF WOONSOCKET, by and through its TREASURER Carol TOUZIN.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

934 A.2d 799

Gordon F.B. ONDIS v. CITY OF WOONSOCKET, by and through its TREASURER Carol TOUZIN.

No. 2004-285-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

November 9, 2007.

Nicholas Gorham, Esq., North Scituate, for Plaintiff.

James A. Hall, Esq., Providence, for Defendant.

Present: WILLIAMS, C.J., GOLDBERG, FLAHERTY, and ROBINSON, JJ.

OPINION

Justice FLAHERTY, for the Court.

"Few things are as certain as death, taxes and the legal entanglement that follows a sale of landlocked real estate." Bob Daniels and Sons v. Weaver, 106 Idaho 535, 681 P.2d 1010, 1013 (Ct.App.1984). In this appeal from a judgment entered by the Superior Court in an action for declaratory and injunctive relief, the plaintiff Gordon Ondis claims an easement over property in North Smithfield, owned by the defendant City of Woonsocket.¹ The plaintiff, whose property is landlocked, seeks to enjoin the city from interfering with his use of a disputed right-of-way. The plaintiff argues that he had a deeded easement over the city's property, even though that right-of-way was literally flooded more than 100 years ago when the city's Reservoir No. 3 was created.² The plaintiff argues in the alternative that an easement by necessity arose at the time of the flooding or that another right-of-way was substituted for the deeded right-of-way that was sunk under a century's drinking water. Thus, an ancient right-of-way, after 100 years of quiet submersion at the bottom of the Woonsocket Reservoir, resurfaces to test Rhode Island waters on the law of easements in the 21st century. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we affirm the judgment of the Superior Court.

I Factual Background

Gordon Ondis purchased a thirty-acre parcel of undeveloped real estate in North Smithfield in 1999. Surrounding this land is a reservoir, owned by the City of Woonsocket, that serves the drinking-water needs of local residents. Ondis purchased this land (the woodlot) from his attorney and good friend, who notified him of potential issues surrounding access to the property. However, plaintiff decided to take the risk, and he paid only $700 an acre for the woodlot.

At trial, Ondis testified that before purchasing the woodlot he observed locals use a fire road to get access to the property.³ He also testified that he observed his predecessor in interest, Mr. Girourd, bring guests to the undeveloped land. Mr. Girourd used the fire road to occasionally bring school children to the woodlot, traveling the road by bus. Ondis further testified that, as a young man, he himself also used the fire road for fishing and hunting purposes. Ondis' testimony constituted the main evidence of overall usage of the fire road, and it revealed that the use both was sporadic and included people who did not own the woodlot, such as the youthful plaintiff himself.

Ondis testified that he intended to develop two or three residential lots on the woodlot. However, once the city discovered that it owned the fire road, it blocked it and stymied plaintiff from getting access to his newly acquired property. After Ondis was denied access to his property, he filed suit against the city, asking the Superior Court for a declaration that the right-of-way existed and for an injunction against defendant's interference with plaintiff's use of the disputed way. Eventually, the case was tried before a justice of the Superior Court, sitting without a jury.

At the conclusion of the trial, the Court found that at some point in the late 1800s, all the land in question belonged to a man named Obed Paine, who owned a large contiguous parcel that encompassed both the fire road and the woodlot. In 1876, Paine conveyed a section of the large parcel to Lydia Haswell and others. The deed of conveyance declares:

"Reserving to the Grantor forever a free and undisturbed right-of-way over several pasture paths leading from the said Grantor's reserved woodland to Sayles Hill Road. Also giving to the Grantee the right-of-way over grantor's Harris Lot Path towards Rocky Hill Road."

It is undisputed that Ondis' parcel is the "reserved woodland" mentioned in the Paine-Haswell deed. The Superior Court also made several critical findings of fact. The Court found that (1) plaintiff's predecessors in title had access via several pasture paths leading from plaintiff's property toward Sayles Hill Road, (2) that access was destroyed when the reservoir was created more than 100 years ago, and (3) plaintiff purchased the property in 1999.

The record also reveals that the City of Woonsocket acquired the land surrounding the woodlot in connection with the creation of its Reservoir No. 3 in the late 19th century. The Superior Court found that the Harris Lot Path and the pasture paths that are referred to in the deed were submerged under twenty feet of water in the reservoir early in the last century.

At trial, plaintiff argued that an easement arose by necessity as soon as the city destroyed the deeded easement. The plaintiff also argued that the ancient right-of-way still existed because an easement on the fire road had been substituted for the deeded easement at the time of the "great flooding" of Reservoir No. 3. In response, the city argued that plaintiff failed to introduce sufficient facts to meet the heavy burden required to prove an easement by substitution. And, as a matter of law it argued that his theory of easement by necessity was fatally flawed because of the absence of unity of title at the time the original easement was destroyed, and also because an express easement existed at the time the original parcel was severed.

At the close of plaintiff's case, the city filed a motion under Rule 52(c) of the Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure for a judgment on partial findings.⁴ It argued that plaintiff's claims were time-barred by the relevant statute of limitations and also that his claim to title was extinguished by the Marketable Record Title Act (MRTA).⁵ The trial justice reserved judgment on the city's motion until the end of trial.

At the conclusion of all the evidence, the trial justice proceeded to decide the case on the merits before he ruled on the reserved procedural motions. He found that plaintiff did not meet the burden of proof necessary to establish an easement by substitution. He also found that prior decisions of this Court precluded a finding of easement by necessity. Specifically, the trial justice ruled that the grantor reserved an express easement at the time of severance, and the unity of title doctrine precluded a finding of an easement at the time of the flooding instead. After thus holding on the merits of the controversy, the Court revisited the Rule 52(c) motion, and ruled that both the statute of limitations and the MRTA barred plaintiff's claims to a right-of-way in the first instance.⁶

Because the Superior Court's findings are not clearly wrong with respect to the issue of easement by substitution, and because we decline plaintiff's invitation to reverse many years of common law precedent in the law of easements with regard to the easement by necessity issue, we affirm.

II Standard of Review

"A judgment in a nonjury case will be reversed on appeal when it can be shown that the trial justice misapplied the law, misconceived or overlooked material evidence or made factual findings that were clearly wrong." Town of West Greenwich v. A. Cardi Realty Assoc., 786 A.2d 354, 357-58 (R.I.2001) (citing Forte Bros., Inc. v. Ronald M. Ash & Assocs., Inc., 612 A.2d 717, 721 (R.I.1992)). Otherwise, we are deferential to the trial justice's findings of fact and give them great weight. Barone v. Cotroneo, 711 A.2d 648, 649 (R.I.1998) (mem.). However, we will review pure questions of law that have been presented on appeal on a de novo basis. Manchester v. Pereira, 926 A.2d 1005, 1011 (R.I.2007) (citing Dellagrotta v. Dellagrotta, 873 A.2d 101, 109 (R.I.2005); R.I. Depositors Economic Prot. Corp. v. Bowen Court Assocs., 763 A.2d 1005, 1007 (R.I.2001)).

"Because of our concern that a persons title to real estate should remain free and unfettered, we have held an individual who seeks to establish an easement upon the land of another to a high degree of proof." Berberian v. Dowd, 104 R.I. 585, 589, 247 A.2d 508, 510-11 (1968). Although a plaintiff in a civil action normally must meet his burden by only a preponderance of the evidence, the plaintiff must overcome a higher clear and convincing standard to prove an easement. Id. at 590, 247 A.2d at 511 (citing Foley v. Lyons, 85 R.I. 86, 125 A.2d 247 (1956); Day v. The Proprietors of Swan Point Cemetery, 51 R.I. 213, 153 A. 312 (1931); Tefft v. Reynolds, 43 R.I. 538, 113 A. 787 (1921)).

Analysis and Discussion

III Easement by Substitution

Rhode Island has firmly established precedent on the law of easement by substitution. This Court, in Hurst v. Brayton, 43 R.I. 378, 113 A. 4 (1921), said succinctly that "[w]hen the owner of a servient estate closes with a wall or other structure the original way and points out another way which is accepted by the owner of the dominant estate, the new way may become a way by substitution." Id. at 381, 113 A. at 5. In Hurst, the complainant brought a bill in equity to enjoin the obstruction of his right-of-way across the respondents' property. Id. at 379, 113 A. at 4. The respondents agreed that the complainant had a right-of-way; however, they demanded that complainant "now construct at great expense to himself a way along the line described in the reservation clause in the deed* * *." Id. at 380, 113 A. at 4. The Superior Court found "that for at least 70 years this way has been used by complainant and those who preceded him in title with the knowledge of and without objection from respondents or their predecessors." Id. The Court further found ample evidence of an agreement in which "the respondents' mother and ancestor in title preferred the way in question be used rather than the original way, which would lead...