## Facts

- A landowner conveyed a two-acre parcel to Charles and Geraldine Goss as tenants by the entirety.
- In the same deed, the grantor gave the grantees, and their “guests,” the right to hunt and fish on the grantor’s remaining land.
- After Charles Goss died, Geraldine became sole owner of the two-acre parcel and later conveyed it to herself and her daughter as tenants in common.
- The grantor later conveyed the remaining land to C.A.N. Wildlife Trust, Inc., which took title subject to any enforceable interests benefiting the two-acre parcel.
- Geraldine allowed a friend to hunt on the Trust’s property; the Trust objected and asserted the deed language created only a revocable, personal license that did not bind successors or permit third-party hunting.

## Issues

1. Whether the deed language granting hunting and fishing rights created a revocable personal license or an appurtenant property interest (profit à prendre or easement) benefiting the two-acre parcel.
2. If a property interest was created, whether it runs with the dominant parcel through later ownership changes and binds successors to the servient land.
3. Whether the deed’s reference to “guests” authorizes the dominant owner to permit third parties to hunt and fish on the servient land within the grant’s scope.

## Decision

- The appellate court reversed the trial court’s judgment for the Trust and remanded.
- The deed created an appurtenant profit à prendre or easement (an interest in land), not a revocable personal license.
- The interest ran with the two-acre parcel and was not extinguished by later transfers of either the dominant or servient estate.
- The deed’s inclusion of “guests” permitted the dominant owners to invite third parties to hunt and fish on the servient land, subject to the original grant’s limits.

## Legal Principles

- A continuing right, granted by deed, to enter another’s land for hunting and fishing is generally construed as a profit à prendre or easement, not a license, when it is appurtenant to identified land and not expressly made personal or time-limited.
- Profits and easements appurtenant run with the dominant estate; successors to the dominant land take the benefit, and successors to the servient land take subject to the burden, absent a recognized method of termination or contrary language.
- Express deed language extending use to “guests” allows the dominant owner to invite third parties to exercise the right, so long as the use remains within the grant and does not impose an improper additional burden.
- An appurtenant interest in land is not revocable at will; termination requires an applicable doctrine such as merger or abandonment.

## Conclusion

The court held that the deed granted an appurtenant hunting-and-fishing profit/easement benefiting the two-acre parcel, binding later owners of the burdened land, and allowing invited guests to use the servient property as permitted by the original grant.


Goss v. C.A.N. Wildlife Tr., Inc., 157 Md. App. 447, 852 A.2d 996 (Ct. Spec. App. 2004)