## Facts

- Grace Cameron owned a lot fronting North Street in Carlisle, Kentucky (servient estate).
- The Kentucky State Highway Department acquired a two-acre tract behind Cameron’s lot to build and operate a highway garage (dominant estate).
- In 1876, when a single owner held both parcels, a deed created a passway from the rear tract to North Street; the deed was lost and never recorded, and the exact terms were unknown.
- Later deeds in Cameron’s chain of title repeatedly referenced the same passway as reserved for the benefit of the rear tract; Cameron’s deed stated that the right of passway from the rear tract to North Street was included in her conveyance.
- The passway historically served changing uses of the rear tract: slaughterhouse operations, later farming (machinery and crops), and then highway garage traffic (vehicles, trucks, equipment).
- Cameron sued to enjoin the Highway Department from using the passway for highway garage operations; the chancellor dismissed the petition.

## Issues

1. Whether the passway was a restricted easement limited to historical uses or a general easement appurtenant to the dominant estate.
2. Whether changed use of the dominant estate (slaughterhouse to farm to highway garage) impermissibly enlarged the easement’s scope.
3. Whether the easement had been extinguished by merger when a prior owner allegedly held both dominant and servient estates.

## Decision

- The court affirmed dismissal of the injunction action.
- The passway was a general easement appurtenant to the dominant estate, not limited to slaughterhouse or farming purposes.
- Use of the passway for highway garage vehicles and equipment was within the easement’s permissible scope.
- The easement was not extinguished by merger on the record presented.

## Legal Principles

- Where an easement was created by deed but the original instrument is unavailable, courts may determine scope from the chain of title and historical practice; absent express limitations, the easement is treated as general.
- A general appurtenant right-of-way may accommodate reasonable changes in the dominant estate’s use, provided the use does not unreasonably increase the burden on the servient estate.
- Merger extinguishes an easement only upon full unity of title in the same person; without proof of complete unity sufficient to terminate separate rights, the easement continues as appurtenant.

## Conclusion

The court held that a deeded passway referenced throughout the parties’ titles was a general appurtenant easement, allowing reasonable access for the dominant tract’s current highway garage use, and it rejected claims that the easement was limited by past uses or terminated by merger.


Cameron v. Barton, 272 S.W.2d 40 (Ky. Ct. App. 1954)