Facts
- Traders, Inc. owned a 121-acre parcel that lacked direct access to a public road.
- The Bartholomews owned the adjoining northern tract over which a former town highway route provided access to Traders’ parcel.
- Before 1908, Town Highway 16 ran across what became the Bartholomews’ land and along the northern boundary of Traders’ parcel.
- In 1908, Benson’s selectmen discontinued Town Highway 16 and set the roadbed to abutters under then-existing law.
- Traders asserted the highway extended into a neighboring town in 1908, which would have required county-court proceedings and would have made Benson’s discontinuance invalid.
- The north and south tracts had been under common ownership, but were severed in 1931 through foreclosure affecting the northern parcels, leaving the southern tract (now Traders’ land) landlocked.
- From roughly 1943 to 1976, Traders’ predecessor used the former highway route for ingress and egress.
- Traders bought the parcel in 1976 and sought a declaration that the discontinuance was invalid (so a public road remained) or, alternatively, that it held an access easement not limited to past use.
Issues
- Whether Town Highway 16 was validly discontinued in 1908, or instead extended into another town so that discontinuance required county-court action.
- Whether Traders’ access right was a prescriptive easement limited to historic use, or a way of necessity arising from the 1931 severance with scope measured by reasonable needs.
Decision
- The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed the determination that the 1908 discontinuance was valid because Traders failed to prove the highway extended beyond Benson at that time.
- The Court reversed the characterization of Traders’ access as a prescriptive easement.
- The Court held Traders had a way of necessity arising from the 1931 severance that landlocked the parcel.
- The Court remanded for findings on the location, width, and character of the way of necessity and for any appropriate allocation of costs for enlargement or improvement.
Legal Principles
- A party challenging the validity of an historic highway discontinuance bears the burden of proving facts that would trigger different statutory discontinuance procedures.
- Appellate review defers to supported trial-court factfinding on conflicting evidence regarding a roadway’s historic location and extent.
- A way of necessity arises by implication of law upon severance of common ownership when the severance leaves one parcel without reasonable access to a public road.
- Use consistent with an implied way of necessity is not “adverse” in the manner required to establish a prescriptive easement.
- The scope of a way of necessity is determined by what is reasonably necessary for the convenient enjoyment of the dominant estate, considering reasonably expected present and future uses, while avoiding an unreasonable burden on the servient estate.
- Unlike a prescriptive easement (generally confined to the use by which it was acquired), a way of necessity is not fixed to the dominant estate’s historic level of use and may require fact-specific adjustment in dimensions and character.
- When increased use requires enlargement or improvement, the party benefitting from the increased burden may be required to bear related costs, subject to the trial court’s findings.
Conclusion
The court upheld Benson’s 1908 discontinuance of Town Highway 16 but ruled that Traders’ access across the Bartholomews’ land existed as a way of necessity created by the 1931 severance, requiring the trial court to set a reasonably necessary route and dimensions rather than limiting access to historic use.