Hunt v. Pole Bridge Hunting Club, Inc.

Thanks for visiting! Welcome to a new way to research case law. You are viewing a free summary from Descrybe.ai. For citation and good law / bad law checking, legal issue analysis, and other advanced tools, explore our Legal Research Toolkit — not free, but close.

Hunt v. Pole Bridge Hunting Club, Inc.

Citations: 219 A.D.2d 618; 631 N.Y.S.2d 711; 1995 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 9309

Court: Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York; September 18, 1995; New York; State Appellate Court

EnglishEspañolSimplified EnglishEspañol Fácil

In an action seeking to establish an easement over the defendant’s property, the plaintiffs appealed two rulings from the Supreme Court, Orange County: an April 19, 1994 order granting the defendant summary judgment and denying the plaintiffs’ cross motion, and a June 1, 1994 judgment based on that order. The appeal from the order is dismissed, and the judgment is affirmed, with the respondent awarded costs.

The dismissal of the appeal from the intermediate order is justified as the right to appeal terminated upon the entry of judgment. The court reviewed the issues raised in the appeal from the order in the context of the appeal from the judgment.

The plaintiffs, adjoining landowners, received a 21.7-acre parcel from the defendant, which included an easement for a portion of the defendant’s former railroad roadbed located south of that parcel. Subsequently, the plaintiffs acquired an adjacent 529-acre parcel and used the roadbed for access until the defendant blocked part of it.

The court determined that the easement, as defined by the grant, only applied to the roadbed south of the 21.7-acre parcel, as the language of the grant was unambiguous. The plaintiffs could not extend the easement to the newly acquired 529-acre parcel, as the easement was not appurtenant to it. The decision was supported by precedents stating that the extent of an easement is confined to what is explicitly granted, and the owner of a dominant tenement cannot impose easement rights on a servient tenement for properties to which the easement does not apply.