## Facts

- A common grantor owned two adjoining parcels: a riverfront “annex parcel” and an “inland parcel” between the annex parcel and the public road.
- In 1945, the grantor first conveyed the annex parcel without granting an express easement over the inland parcel.
- Later in 1945, the grantor conveyed the inland parcel and “excepted and reserved” a right-of-way “to himself personally, and to” the owner of the annex parcel.
- For decades, owners of the annex parcel and members of the public used a route across the inland parcel to access the road and waterfront.
- The annex-parcel owner built a large motel on the annex parcel, increasing traffic over the inland parcel; the inland-parcel owner sought to bar that use.
- The annex-parcel owner’s estate obtained a quitclaim deed from the grantor’s successor purporting to convey the grantor’s reserved right-of-way.
- The estate filed a declaratory judgment action asserting an express easement over the inland parcel based on the reservation language and the quitclaim deed.

## Issues

1. Whether a grantor can create an express easement appurtenant benefiting land the grantor no longer owns by reserving it in a later deed conveying the servient parcel.
2. Whether a reservation in a deed can validly create an easement in favor of a third party (“stranger to the deed”), such as the owner of a previously conveyed parcel.
3. Whether the grantor’s reserved right-of-way was a transferable easement in gross that could be assigned by a successor via quitclaim deed.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of the estate’s express-easement claim.
- The court held no express easement appurtenant for the annex parcel was created because the grantor could not reserve an easement benefiting land he did not own at the time of the inland-parcel conveyance.
- The attempted reservation in favor of the annex-parcel owner was invalid as an easement purportedly created for a “stranger to the deed.”
- Any personal right retained by the grantor was, at most, a noncommercial easement in gross, which was nonassignable; thus, the successor’s quitclaim deed conveyed no enforceable right-of-way.

## Legal Principles

- A reservation cannot create an easement appurtenant benefiting a parcel the grantor does not own at the time of the reservation.
- Under New York law, an easement created by deed in favor of a third party who is not a party to the conveyance is invalid.
- A noncommercial easement in gross is generally nonassignable; a successor cannot transfer such a personal right by quitclaim deed.
- Clear intent to benefit a previously conveyed parcel cannot overcome these formal limits on creating and transferring easement interests.

## Conclusion

The court held that the deed reservation could not establish an express right-of-way for a previously conveyed parcel or for a third party to the conveyance, and that any personal right-of-way retained by the grantor was a nonassignable easement in gross, leaving the estate without an express easement across the inland parcel.


Estate of Thomson v. Wade, 69 N.Y.2d 570 (N.Y. 1987)