## Facts

- In 1895, a single 140-acre tract in Sangamon County, Illinois, was severed when the owner conveyed 39.47 acres to a grantee; the grantor retained the remaining roughly 100 acres.
- In 1937, Eugene E. Finn and Curtis Estallar Finn acquired the 39.47-acre parcel; Zilphia Jane Williams owned the retained 100-acre parcel as successor to the grantor.
- The Finn parcel did not abut a public highway and was effectively landlocked.
- When the land was under common ownership, access to a highway was by traveling northward via an established route that required crossing (1) the retained tract and then (2) a separate, adjacent tract owned by a third party.
- The Finns and prior owners historically used a road across the Williams tract to reach the public road and markets until Williams refused permission shortly before suit.
- Williams asserted an alternative private road to the south existed, but the evidence showed any southern route depended on travel across lands of others and was not available as a reliable legal access.

## Issues

1. Whether the appeal should be dismissed as untimely under the applicable appellate filing rules despite a trial-court extension for filing the report of proceedings.
2. Whether an easement by necessity was implied over the grantor’s retained land upon severance where the conveyed parcel had no practical access to a public highway except across the retained land, and asserted alternatives depended on strangers’ land.

## Decision

- The motion to dismiss the appeal was denied; the notice of appeal was timely, and the trial court’s extension for filing the report of proceedings was effective.
- The decree was affirmed.
- The court held the Finns owned an implied easement by necessity over Williams’s tract to reach the established route to the public highway.
- The court rejected the claimed southern access as defeating necessity because it depended on uncertain or unavailable passage over land owned by others.

## Legal Principles

- An easement by necessity is implied upon severance of commonly owned land when the conveyed parcel lacks access to a public highway except over the grantor’s remaining land (or otherwise would require passage over strangers’ land).
- The necessity must be strict; convenience is insufficient.
- Access that depends on permission or uncertain use of strangers’ land does not negate strict necessity for an implied way over the grantor’s retained parcel.
- Once implied at severance, an easement by necessity passes with subsequent transfers of the benefited land and may remain dormant until the necessity requires its use, ending when the necessity ends.

## Conclusion

The Illinois Supreme Court upheld a declaratory decree recognizing an implied easement by necessity benefiting a landlocked parcel, reasoning that the severance created a legally enforceable way over the grantor’s retained land and that purported alternatives relying on others’ property did not defeat strict necessity.


Finn v. Williams, 376 Ill. 95, 33 N.E.2d 226 (Ill. 1941)