## Facts

- The parties owned adjacent improved parcels on Franklin Street in San Francisco.
- In 1942, Mary Petersen conveyed part of her property by grant deed and expressly reserved for the retained parcel a perpetual easement to receive light, air, and unobstructed view over the conveyed parcel.
- The easement limited any structure, fence, trees, or shrubs on the servient parcel to a height not extending above a horizontal plane 28 feet above the Franklin Street sidewalk level at specified boundary points.
- The deed treated any obstruction above the plane as an unauthorized interference, except for a peaked gable roof and a necessary number of specified flues or vents not over 4 feet high; unauthorized obstructions were to be removed on demand at the servient owner’s expense.
- Through later conveyances, defendants acquired the servient parcel subject to the recorded easement.
- Defendants erected television aerials and antennae projecting above the 28-foot plane.
- The executor of Mary Petersen’s estate sued for a permanent injunction against violations and a mandatory injunction requiring removal of the aerials and antennae.
- The trial court found the complaint’s allegations true, entered judgment for plaintiff, and issued both requested injunctions.

## Issues

1. Whether television aerials and antennae extending above the 28-foot plane violated the express easement of light, air, and unobstructed view.
2. Whether the interference justified injunctive relief, including mandatory removal of the aerials and antennae.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment for plaintiff.
- The court held the recorded, expressly reserved easement was valid and enforceable against defendants as successors to the servient estate.
- The television aerials and antennae projecting above the 28-foot plane were unauthorized obstructions because they were not within the deed’s enumerated exceptions.
- The trial court properly granted both a permanent prohibitory injunction and a mandatory injunction compelling removal.

## Legal Principles

- An express easement is construed according to the intent and plain terms stated in the instrument creating it.
- Where an express easement defines an “unobstructed view” by a specific height plane and narrow exceptions, any object exceeding that plane and not excepted constitutes an unauthorized interference, regardless of the object’s relative slenderness or asserted utility.
- Successors to the servient estate who take title with record notice are bound by the easement’s restrictions running with the land.
- Injunctive relief, including mandatory removal, is an appropriate remedy to enforce an express easement when the instrument contemplates removal of unauthorized obstructions.

## Conclusion

The court enforced the deed’s express view easement strictly as written, holding that television aerials and antennae extending above the specified 28-foot plane were prohibited obstructions and properly ordered enjoined and removed.


Petersen v. Friedman, 162 Cal. App. 2d 245 (Cal. Ct. App. 1958)