## Facts

- Baldi owned a drive-in movie theater and sold Thurston a nearby parcel for marina-related uses, granting a 50-foot-wide express right-of-way across the theater property.
- The deeded route began at the theater entrance, passed under a marquee and by a ticket booth, and continued into Thurston’s parcel.
- Thurston used ten-wheel trucks to haul fill over the easement in multiple years, damaging the light asphalt surface designed for ordinary theater traffic.
- Because the trucks could not stay within the described corridor while passing the marquee and ticket booth, they repeatedly entered adjacent speaker aisles outside the easement area and caused extensive rutting and additional damage.
- After repeated damage and Thurston’s refusal to stop, Baldi obstructed the entrance to the right-of-way with a pickup truck.
- Thurston filed an equity petition seeking removal of the obstruction and a judicial definition of easement rights; Baldi counterclaimed for revocation of the easement and damages.
- A court-appointed master found Thurston’s heavy-truck use was not contemplated at the grant and constituted unreasonable use and an enlargement of the easement.
- The trial court ordered, among other relief, repaving and reconstruction work, a five-trucks-per-day limit, and a cost allocation between the parties; it severed legal damages issues for later proceedings.

## Issues

1. Whether an express easement granted by deed terminates when any original necessity ends due to later-acquired alternate access.
2. Whether preexisting, visible structures (the marquee and ticket booth) were actionable obstructions requiring removal to permit Thurston’s use.
3. Whether Thurston’s heavy-truck operations and repeated deviations outside the described right-of-way unreasonably overburdened or enlarged the easement.
4. Whether an equity decree defining easement rights may order repairs and reconstruction to remedy past damage, or must leave such relief to a legal damages action.
5. Whether the court properly imposed a fixed numerical limit on truck traffic as part of equitable relief.

## Decision

- The court held the express easement did not terminate merely because Thurston later obtained alternate access; its duration and scope were governed by deed construction.
- The court affirmed the refusal to require removal of the marquee and ticket booth, treating them as part of the physical conditions apparent at the time of the grant.
- The court accepted that Thurston’s manner of use was unreasonable and that its deviations into speaker aisles constituted an improper enlargement and damaging overburdening of the servient estate.
- The court vacated or modified portions of the equitable decree requiring repaving/reconstruction and related detailed construction requirements, concluding those provisions primarily addressed compensation for past harm and belonged in the severed legal damages proceedings.
- The court vacated the five-trucks-per-day limitation and remanded for further proceedings consistent with limiting equity relief to defining rights and preventing future unreasonable interference.

## Legal Principles

- An easement is a nonpossessory interest conferring limited use of another’s land; the dominant owner must exercise it without materially injuring the servient owner’s possessory interests.
- An easement expressly granted by deed persists according to the parties’ intent reflected in the deed and surrounding circumstances at the time of conveyance; it does not end solely because any necessity later disappears.
- The dominant estate’s use must be reasonable and may not materially increase the burden on the servient estate or expand use beyond the granted location and scope.
- Visible, preexisting structures at the time of an express grant are generally treated as part of the conditions under which the easement was accepted, absent deed language requiring removal.
- Equity relief in easement-scope litigation is ordinarily prospective (defining rights and preventing future unreasonable use); remedies directed at past injury generally require an adequate legal damages process.

## Conclusion

The court preserved the deeded easement and affirmed that the marquee and ticket booth need not be removed, but limited equitable relief to prospective regulation of reasonable use, leaving restoration and compensation for past damage to legal damages proceedings.


Thurston Enters., Inc. v. Baldi, 128 N.H. 760, 519 A.2d 297 (N.H. 1986)