## Facts

- A common owner subdivided a tract into multiple parcels, including a retained parcel (later owned by Neda Young) and landlocked parcels (one later owned by Roger Lewis).
- Deeds for the landlocked parcels granted rights-of-way across the retained parcel to reach a public road.
- One express easement granted “perpetual use, in common with others,” of the retained parcel’s “main driveway” running generally in a southwesterly direction; unlike other easements in the same deed, it was not described by metes and bounds.
- Young purchased the servient parcel with record notice of the easements and planned improvements that would conflict with the existing driveway route.
- Young relocated the driveway on her property; the new route ran almost the same course and continued to provide access to the public road for dominant parcel owners.
- After acquiring the dominant parcel, Lewis demanded improvements to the relocated driveway and later sued to enjoin the relocation and require restoration of the driveway to its original location.

## Issues

1. Whether a servient landowner may unilaterally relocate an express right-of-way when the grant does not fix the precise location and the relocation does not impair the dominant owner’s ingress and egress.
2. What standard governs whether a relocation is permissible and whether the dominant owner’s easement rights have been impaired.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals reversed the order requiring restoration of the driveway to its original location.
- The court held that, under the circumstances, a servient owner may relocate the right-of-way without the dominant owner’s consent so long as the dominant owner’s access and ingress are not impaired.
- The court remitted the case for further factual determinations on whether the relocation, as implemented, provided substantially equivalent access and whether conditions were necessary to prevent impairment.

## Legal Principles

- Interpretation of an express easement turns on the grant’s language and apparent intent, including contrasts within the same instrument between precise and imprecise descriptions.
- When an easement’s location is not clearly fixed, the servient owner retains latitude to use and develop the property, limited by a duty not to unreasonably interfere with the easement’s purpose.
- A servient owner may reasonably relocate an imprecisely located right-of-way without consent if the change preserves the dominant owner’s substantive right of ingress and egress.
- Whether a particular relocation impairs the easement holder’s access is a fact-intensive inquiry that may require remand when the record is insufficient.

## Conclusion

The court allowed unilateral relocation of an express right-of-way that was described only generally, rejecting a categorical rule that the original route is immutable, and required further proceedings to determine whether the relocated driveway provided equivalent, unimpaired access.


Lewis v. Young, 92 N.Y.2d 443, 705 N.E.2d 649 (N.Y. 1998)