Saturday, January 4, 2014

Burcky v. Knowles case brief

Burcky v. Knowles case brief summary
413 A.2d 585 (1980)

CASE SYNOPSIS
Plaintiff purchasers appealed a declaratory judgment by the trial court (New Hampshire) that denied the purchasers the right to cross land owned by defendant grantees, who were conveyed land by the purchasers' grantor by two deeds. The second deed did not reserve an easement, which had been previously reserved by the grantor in a prior deed to the grantees, for use by the grantor and any subsequent owners of the land deeded to the purchasers.

CASE FACTS
The purchasers claimed that the deed by which they received their land incorporated the right to the easement that the grantors had reserved in the deed to the grantees, even though the second deed to the grantees for additional land of the grantors failed to mention the existing easements across the grantors' remaining land. The purchasers also claimed that the subsequent sale to the grantees did not destroy the purchasers' right to cross the land. The grantees claimed that the failure of the grantors to include a reservation of an easement in the second deed resulted in the purchasers not being able to cross the grantees' land.

DISCUSSION

  • The court reversed the trial court's judgment that declared that the purchasers were not entitled to use the easement across the land owned by the grantees. 
  • The court held that the original easement contained in the deed by which the grantees received their interest in the first parcel of land reserved to the grantors for the benefit of the purchasers, as subsequent owners, a right to use the easement across the grantees' land, which was an appurtenance that ran with the land and was not personal to the grantors.
CONCLUSION
The court reversed the trial court's judgment that declared that the purchasers were not entitled to use the right-of-way across the land owned by the grantees and held that the purchasers had a right to use the easement across the grantees' land.

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