## Facts

- Angus Chemical Co. acquired a chemical plant that used an existing 12-inch underground wastewater pipeline running about three-and-a-half miles across neighboring properties to a wastewater treatment facility.
- The pipeline corridor was governed by a right-of-way agreement executed by the plant’s prior owner and neighboring landowners granting “a right of way and easement with the right to construct, maintain, inspect, operate, protect, alter, repair, replace and change the size of a pipeline.”
- After Angus acquired the plant, the 12-inch pipeline began leaking.
- Glendora Plantation, Inc. later acquired one of the tracts burdened by the pipeline right-of-way.
- Angus sought permission from the affected landowners to (1) abandon the 12-inch pipeline and (2) install a new 16-inch pipeline under the same right-of-way; all landowners agreed except Glendora.
- Angus filed suit seeking declaratory relief, then proceeded to construct the 16-inch replacement line and to flush, plug, and leave the 12-inch line in the ground.
- The district court granted Angus partial summary judgment, concluding that the right-of-way agreement authorized both installation of the 16-inch pipeline and abandonment of the 12-inch pipeline in place.
- On appeal, Glendora argued that the original right-of-way did not grant a right to abandon a line in place, and that a later agreement expressly granting an abandonment right suggested the original agreement omitted that authority (or at least made the original agreement unclear). Glendora also pointed to Angus’s internal documents as possible evidence about Angus’s own understanding of its rights.

## Issues

1. Whether the right-of-way agreement’s grant of authority to “replace” and “change the size” of a pipeline authorized Angus to leave the prior 12-inch pipeline in the ground after installing a 16-inch replacement line.
2. Whether the right-of-way agreement was sufficiently clear to allow summary judgment on the abandonment-in-place question, or whether competing evidence created a fact dispute about the parties’ intent.
3. Whether Glendora was entitled to discovery aimed at extrinsic evidence (including Angus’s internal records) bearing on the meaning and scope of the right-of-way agreement.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s determination that the right-of-way agreement permitted Angus to construct a 16-inch replacement pipeline within the easement corridor.
- The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s summary judgment ruling that Angus was entitled, as a matter of law, to abandon the 12-inch pipeline in place.
- The court remanded for further proceedings, including consideration of evidence bearing on the intent and scope of the right-of-way grant as it relates to abandonment and related discovery disputes.

## Legal Principles

- Easement scope is determined first from the text of the right-of-way agreement, read in context and in light of the parties’ intent.
- A grant allowing replacement and changes in size can authorize a larger replacement pipeline when the replacement remains within the easement and is consistent with the grant’s stated purposes.
- Summary judgment is improper when the agreement’s language and the record leave a genuine dispute about whether the parties intended to authorize a specific use (such as leaving an obsolete line in the ground).
- Where extrinsic evidence may bear on the meaning of an ambiguous or disputed easement term, discovery directed to that evidence may be required before resolving the dispute as a matter of law.

## Conclusion

Angus Chemical involved a pipeline right-of-way granting broad operational rights, including the right to replace a pipeline and change its size. The Fifth Circuit agreed that this language allowed Angus to install a larger, 16-inch replacement wastewater line, but held that the record did not support summary judgment that Angus could also abandon the old 12-inch pipeline in place. Because evidence such as subsequent agreements and Angus’s internal materials could bear on the intended scope of the abandonment right, the court remanded for additional proceedings.


Angus Chemical Co. v. Glendora Plantation, Inc., 782 F.3d 175 (2015)