4/16/2023 0 Comments Metes and bounds agriculture![]() ![]() Because the Company could choose to pursue enforcement of its interpretation of the deeds at any time, and because a larger easement width could impact the landowner’s property usage, it was ripe for decision. The court sided with the landowners, finding that there was a justiciable controversy. The landowners argued that their claims are ripe because, due to the Company’s position that their easement is unlimited, the Company could file trespass claims at anytime, and that due to the uncertainty under the deeds created by the Company’s position, the landowners are effectively being denied the full use of their property. The Company argued this case was not ripe as the landowners did not allege any action or proposed action by the Company that prevented them from utilizing their own property. The court sided with the landowners in this case, affirming the trial judge.Ĭourts can only rule on cases that are justiciable, which requires that, among other things, claims be “ripe.” A claim is ripe if “at the time a lawsuit is filed, the facts are sufficiently developed so that an injury has occurred or is likely to occur, rather than being contingent or remote.” Conversely, a case is not ripe and a court may not rule if a determination of whether the plaintiff suffered injury depends on hypothetical facts or events that have not yet occurred. The trial court judge sided with the landowners, limiting the Company’s use of the easement to 30′ as that was the width of the prior use. A general easement, the company argued, gives them “the right to use as much as we reasonably determine each time we need to use the easement.” The Company argued that the 1949 deeds granted a general easement that was not so limited in width. ![]() The landowners based their argument of a 30′ limitation on the fact that was the width that the Company had used over the years to construct and maintain the power lines. It was not, the plaintiffs argued, a blanket easement allowing the Company unlimited access to the landowners’ property. ![]() The landowners filed suit seeking a declaratory judgment that the Company’s easement was limited to a width of 30 feet. Landowners testified that the modified line with the steel poles did not take up additional room beyond the 30′ that had been utilized by the Company’s prior line. The plaintiff landowners refused to sign the supplemental agreements, but the Company entered their property and upgraded regardless, arguing they were entitled to do so under the 1949 deeds. Although the original conveyances were silent as to width, the supplemental agreement would have expressly included a width of 100′. When this began, the Company sent landowners along the line a letter informing them of the planned modernization of the line and offering each of them $1,000 in exchange for supplementing the existing easement and to revise and clarify the width and boundaries of the 1949 easements. In 2014, the Company began to rebuild and modernize the transmission lines, replacing wooden poles with steel. Historically, the company had utilized thirty feet total, 15 feet on each side of the center of the transmission line. The Company has continually used the easement to construct, service, and maintain electric transmission lines along the same general paths on which the lines were constructed in 1949. None of the documents specified a width of the easement. None of the conveyance documents contained any metes and bounds description of the easement. Together with the right of ingress and egress over my (our) adjacent lands to or from said right-of-way for the purpose of constructing, reconstructing, inspecting, patrolling, hanging new wires on, maintaining and removing said line and appurtenances. “n easement or right-of-way for an electric transmission and distributing line, consisting of variable numbers of wires, and all necessary or desirable appurtenances (including towers or poles made of wood, metal or other materials, telephone and telegraph wires, props and guys), at or near the location and along the general course now located and staked out by the said Company over, across and upon the following described lands. Each of the easement documents are identical and provide as follows: The easements were grated to the Company in 1949 by the landowners predecessors in title. Three landowners in Bowie County own land burdened by a utility easement held by Southwestern Electric Power Company (“Company”). ![]()
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