## Facts

- In 1939, the Krohns’ predecessors granted Hill County Electric Cooperative an express easement across the property for “constructing and maintaining an electric transmission or distribution line or system,” with limited vegetation-removal rights tied to keeping clear of the electric line or system.
- In 1991, Hill County Electric entered a joint-use agreement with a cable provider later assigning its interest to Marcus Cable Associates, L.P. (d/b/a Charter Communications).
- The joint-use agreement permitted attachment of cable lines to the cooperative’s poles only to the extent the cooperative could lawfully allow it, disclaimed any warranty of easement or right-of-way rights, and placed responsibility on the cable company to obtain any needed easements.
- Marcus Cable installed and maintained cable-television lines on the electric poles crossing the Krohns’ land.
- The Krohns sued for trespass and negligence, seeking removal of the cable line and actual and exemplary damages, alleging Marcus Cable lacked permission or a valid easement.
- Marcus Cable contended it could use the 1939 electric easement via the cooperative’s authorization and, independently, that Texas Utilities Code § 181.102 permitted cable placement “on a utility easement.”

## Issues

1. Whether an easement granted for “an electric transmission or distribution line or system” includes authority to place cable-television lines within the easement corridor.
2. Whether Texas Utilities Code § 181.102 authorizes a cable company to occupy a privately negotiated electric utility easement on private land.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Texas affirmed the court of appeals’ judgment reversing summary judgment for Marcus Cable.
- The Court held the 1939 easement did not authorize cable-television lines because the grant was limited to transmission or distribution of electric power.
- The Court held Texas Utilities Code § 181.102 applies to utility easements dedicated to public use, not to a private easement created by contract between a landowner and an electric cooperative.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with these holdings.

## Legal Principles

- An express easement is a nonpossessory interest that authorizes use of the servient estate only for the purposes stated in the grant.
- The scope of an express easement is determined primarily by the parties’ intent as expressed in the easement language, interpreted according to the ordinary meaning at the time of creation.
- Ambiguities or doubts about the extent of an easement are resolved in favor of the servient estate and against expanding the dominant estate’s rights.
- An easement for “electric transmission or distribution” is directed to conveying electric power and does not, without clear language, include communications uses merely because they involve electricity.
- Technological change and public-policy arguments do not enlarge private property rights beyond the easement’s expressed terms; additional uses require obtaining additional rights.
- Texas Utilities Code § 181.102 does not convert a private electric easement into a multi-use corridor for cable absent a public-use dedication within the statute’s reach.

## Conclusion

The Texas Supreme Court limited a private electric-line easement to its stated purpose—delivery of electric power—and rejected both a technological-expansion theory and a statutory argument under Texas Utilities Code § 181.102, leaving the cable company without authority to occupy the land under that easement.


Marcus Cable Assocs., L.P. v. Krohn, 90 S.W.3d 697 (Tex. 2002)