Lyman v.
Properties
Filed 12/2/13 Lyman v. Plymouth Empire Properties CA3
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
California
Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or
relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except
as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This
opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for
purposes of rule 8.1115.
IN THE COURT OF
APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
THIRD APPELLATE
DISTRICT
(Amador)
----
JOSH LYMAN et al.,
Plaintiffs, Cross-defendants and
Appellants,
v.
PLYMOUTH EMPIRE
PROPERTIES, INC.,
Defendant, Cross-complainant and
Respondent;
IONE BAND OF MIWOK
INDIANS,
Defendant and Respondent.
C070973
(Super. Ct. No. 08CV5212)
This case
stands for the simple proposition that it is not an abuse of discretion to deny
an equitable easement to landowners who
purchased landlocked property knowing they did not have legal access to the
land and who had been told they needed to secure an easement before purchasing
the property. We reject plaintiffs Josh
and Julie Lyman’s distortion of the standard of review as well as their
misreading of the leading authority on equitable easements and affirm the
judgment, rejecting their attempt to quiet title to an easement over property
owned by defendants Plymouth Empire Properties, Inc. (PEP), and the Ione Band
of Miwok Indians (the Tribe). However, we
must reverse the judgment insofar as it awards $100 in damages to PEP for
trespass because we conclude there is insufficient
evidence to support the finding.
FACTS
At the
heart of this controversy is the so-called “County Road 81,†which is not a
county road at all. For some period of
time many years ago the road was designated “County,†but Amador County never
improved or maintained the road, and eventually the fact the public held no
rights in the road was clarified in a reverse quiet title action. The judgment held that “County Road 81†never
was a county road. Nevertheless, “County
Road 81,†which is little more than a dirt track, traverses property owned by
defendants PEP and the Tribe, and provides ingress and egress to several
property owners, including plaintiff Josh Lyman’s brother, Jared Lyman. In 2004 PEP installed several permissive use
signs along the road. There is also a
sign stating “Private Road.â€
Indeed,
Jared purchased his land before plaintiffs purchased theirs and negotiated the
purchase of an access easement from defendant PEP. Other neighbors, the Allisons, have been
granted permission to access their property.
Before plaintiffs purchased their property, Carol Emerson, a
vice-president at PEP, told plaintiff Josh Lyman that he needed to secure an
easement for ingress and egress. The
title reports confirmed that there was no recorded access to the parcels. Plaintiff Josh Lyman acknowledged that at the
time of purchase he was aware there was no legal access to the property. He knew it was not a public road. He assumed he had a right to use a county
road and he assumed, despite advice to the contrary, that he did not need to
secure any access rights.
After
purchasing the property, plaintiffs traveled over defendants’ property on
County Road 81 to access their property.
They have not spoken to other neighbors about alternative access to
their property, including the adjoining land to the east known as Montevina
Vineyards. Historically, people have
also used a road across the Montevina vineyards for access to plaintiffs’ land
and other property in the area.
PEP has
plans to develop its property, and the location of the road would impair its
ability to either sell the property or fully develop it. The grant of the easement would also encumber
the Tribe’s ability to build housing or pursue solar or broadband development,
which might require moving the road.
The trial
court’s findings are blunt. “The
conclusion is inescapable that Plaintiffs simply ‘rolled the dice’, and it is
astonishing that anyone would consummate a purchase under such circumstances as
shown by the evidence here. Having been
told by Ms[.] Emerson there was no access to the parcels Plaintiffs
proposed to purchase, without any investigation with Amador County officials
and records or requirement that the buyers ensure the parcels had access and
going forward on the chance their assumption was correct, Plaintiffs cannot be
said to be ‘innocent’ in respects of the present controversy. Plaintiffs’ actions are fairly characterized
as willful, or at very least, as grossly negligent, and through their conduct
alone, have caused the controversy by encroaching on the property of their
neighbors.â€
The court
expressly considered the hardship to defendants if an easement were imposed. “The road in issue crosses a sensitive
portion of the land of the Defendants.
Evidence established, as did the courts’ view of the site, that the only
propitious portion of the Tribe’s parcel for most development, the level
portion, is the area traversed by the road, as immediately south of the road
the land drops off steeply and is cut by ravines. The testimony of the Tribe’s administrator
made clear the fact that without the flexibility to deal with a user of the
road as they have with the Jared Lyman and Allison families, the development
potential of their parcels is constrained.
Similarly, the value of PEP and Tribe land would be compromised by the
existence of an easement over which they have no effective ability to impose
limits on use or effect its relocation to accommodate their development
interests. The attractiveness of PEP
land to the Tribe or any other potential purchaser would be adversely affected
by imposition of an easement for use by Plaintiffs.†The grant of an equitable easement was
denied.
As to PEP’s
cross-complaint for trespass, the court entered judgment in favor of PEP and
granted damages of $100. The trespass
cause of action was based on the construction of a “$20 fence†on PEP’s
property. Plaintiff Josh Lyman testified
he did not construct the fence, nor did he instruct others to do so. No one testified who actually constructed the
fence. One of PEP’s representatives
testified that he saw plaintiffs’ livestock grazing on PEP property.
As to the
$20 fence, the trial court found that “not until Plaintiffs bought and began
fencing their property was there an issue of where cattle would roam in the
area, and given that they had an obvious interest in containing their cattle
and excluding others, the greater likelihood is that they caused the disputed fence
to be erected.†The court also
explained, “[T]estimony by Mr. Monaghan established that cattle bearing
Plaintiffs’ brand were grazing within the strip of PEP land between Plaintiffs’
and the Vineyard/push gate and contained by the ‘$20 fence’. The weight of the evidence is that
Plaintiffs’ caused the fence to be placed between the fence post corner on
their property and fencing on the PEP-Montevina property line. Cost of removal of the several posts and
strung wire is nominal, certainly not more than $100, and such sum is awarded
to PEP which may itself cause its removal.
No evidence was presented nor were damages sought for loss of use of the
portion of PEP property south of the fence from the time it appeared.â€
The case
was tried on theories of easement by prescription, implication/necessity, and
equity/balance of the hardships.
Pursuant to section 631.8 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the court
granted defense motions as to the theories of prescription and
implication. On appeal, plaintiffs do not
challenge those rulings. At issue is the
denial of a grant of an equitable easement and trespass.
DISCUSSION
I
Standard of Review
“In
appropriate cases in which the requirements for traditional easements are not
present, California courts have exercised their equity powers to fashion
protective interests in land belonging to another, sometimes referring to such
an interest as an ‘equitable easement.’ †(Tashakori
v. Lakis (2011) 196 Cal.App.4th 1003, 1008 (Tashakori).) Plaintiffs’
first obstacle is the deferential and limited scope of appellate review. “When reviewing a trial court’s exercise of
its equity powers to fashion an equitable easement, we will overturn the
decision only if we find that the court abused its discretion.†(Ibid.)
Plaintiffs
insist, however, that we must independently
review the trial court’s ruling because “the legal inquiry requires an
evaluation of whether the legal principles of negligent and willful conduct
were incorrectly interpreted and applied by the Trial Court to the doctrine of
relative hardship, and to the legal concept of ‘innocent encroachment’. †Plaintiffs’ reliance on Crocker National Bank v. City and County of San Francisco (1989) 49
Cal.3d 881, 888 (Crocker) is misplaced.
First,
involve an equitable easement. It does
involve the classification of an item of personal property as a fixture for
purposes of taxation. The Supreme Court
explained that “[t]axation must, of course, be uniform and the tax laws
uniformly applied. [Citation.] Uniformity depends on proper
classification. And proper
classification is furthered through the application of independent
review.†(Crocker, supra, 49 Cal.3d
at pp. 888-889.) Thus, “the pertinent
inquiry bears on the various policy considerations implicated in the solution
of the problem of taxability, and therefore requires a critical consideration,
in a factual context, of legal principles and their underlying values.†(Id.
at p. 888.)
Second, the
taxability question “reduces itself to whether a reasonable person would
consider the item to be a permanent part of the property . . . .†(Crocker,
supra, 49 Cal.3d at pp.
887-888.) An appellate court is as well
equipped as the trial court to apply the reasonable person standard in deciding
classification issues that would support a uniform tax policy. (Ibid.)
By
contrast, the questions to be resolved by a trial court in deciding whether to
grant an equitable easement are unique to the factual context and unrelated to
any policy of uniformity. Simply put,
the question is not predominantly legal.
Rather, the court must resolve what individual landowners believed and
what they did—inherently factual questions.
Crocker is inapposite.
Indeed, in
cases involving equitable easements the chorus is harmonious. Because the trial court exercised its equity
powers when fashioning an easement, “we review the judgment under the abuse of
discretion standard.†(
749, 771 (Hirshfield).) “The question whether the defendant’s conduct
is so egregious as to be willful or whether the quantum of the defendant’s
negligence is so great as to justify an injunction is a matter best left to the
sound discretion of the trial court.†(
259, 267 (Linthicum); accord,
615, 638.) We turn, therefore, to a
review of the record to determine whether the trial court abused its discretion
in deciding that plaintiffs’ conduct was “fairly characterized as willful, or
at the very least, as grossly negligent†and that they “effectively sought to
‘extort’ their neighbors.†We can find
no abuse of discretion in the court’s conclusion that “it would be a manifest
injustice, akin to extortion†to burden defendants with an easement.
II
Easement
Plaintiffs’
appeal is premised on a misunderstanding of what they characterize as the
“common law†regarding equitable easements.
They insist that negligence is equivalent to the type of innocent
encroachment that justified equitable easements in Linthicum and Tashakori. While both cases offer a helpful template in
reviewing a trial court’s exercise of discretion in granting an equitable
easement, neither case is factually analogous to the case before us. They do, however, deserve close examination.
In
used a roadway over the plaintiffs’ land for many years, believing they had an
easement from the United States Forest Service. (Linthicum,
supra, 175 Cal.App.4th at pp.
263-264.) The plaintiffs bought the
parcel and sought to enjoin the neighbors’ use of a road that provided the sole
access to their properties. (
at p. 265.) In exercising its discretion
to deny the plaintiffs’ request for injunctive relief, the court considered the
following factors: “ ‘1. Defendant must be innocent—the encroachment
must not be the result of defendant’s willful act, and perhaps not the result
of defendant’s negligence. In this same
connection the court should weigh plaintiff’s conduct to ascertain if he is in
any way responsible for the situation.
2. If plaintiff will suffer
irreparable injury by the encroachment, the injunction should be granted
regardless of the injury to defendant, except, perhaps, where the rights of the
public will be adversely affected.
3. The hardship to defendant by
the granting of the injunction must be greatly disproportionate to the hardship
caused plaintiff by the continuance of the encroachment and this fact must
clearly appear in the evidence and must be proved by the defendant. But where these factors exist, the injunction
should be denied, otherwise, the court would lend itself to what practically
amounts to extortion.’ [Citation.]†(Id.
at p. 265.)
The trial
court found that the plaintiffs purchased the parcel with full knowledge of the
historical use of the roadway and nevertheless sought to deprive their neighbors
of the value and use of their properties.
(Linthicum,
substantially interfere with the plaintiffs’ right to use and develop their property,
yet the neighbors would suffer a catastrophic loss if denied access to their
properties. (Ibid.) The Court of Appeal
affirmed the trial court’s denial of the request for an injunction, finding
that the court “acted well within its discretion in denying the
injunction.†(Id. at p. 267.)
The equities
were just as apparent and imbalanced in Tashakori.
In Tashakori, as in the instant case,
the trial court was asked to exercise its inherent equitable power to fashion
an equitable easement rather than to enjoin an encroachment as in
passivity as in merely refusing to enjoin an encroachment. Instead, in a proper case, the courts may
exercise their equity powers to affirmatively fashion an interest in the owner’s
land which will protect the encroacher’s use.â€
(Hirshfield,
In
innocent belief that an easement to the public road existed.†(Tashakori,
supra, 196 Cal.App.4th at p. 1010.) They later subdivided the parcel into two,
but both parcels shared a common driveway.
They sold one of the parcels, which, unbeknownst to them, left their
remaining lot landlocked. (
The trial
court found that the owners of the other parcel would “suffer virtually no harm
at all from the Tashakoris’ use of the shared driveway to access Lot 18, and
that the Tashakoris would be irreparably harmed if their sole means of
accessing their property were denied.†(
The court granted an equitable easement over the common driveway, and
the Court of Appeal affirmed. (
Plaintiffs’
spin on cases favorable to defendants is disingenuous. They insist that their predicament is at
least as innocent as the neighbors in Linthicum,
who years earlier had been asked by the Forest Service to renew their special
unit permits but failed to do so. Those
neighbors, plaintiffs argue, assumed like they did that either the roadway was
public or that they had an easement to use it, but they did not verify the
legal status of the land before they purchased it. Nevertheless, the court characterized their
encroachment as innocent. Plaintiffs
complain that the trial court did not apply the same rationale to their
situation, an equally innocent encroachment based on their mistaken belief that
County Road 81 was a public road and/or they had the right to use it because
otherwise their property was landlocked.
But
plaintiffs simply dismiss all the facts that distinguish their willful or
grossly negligent conduct from the innocent encroachment the court found in
Carol Emerson, a shareholder and board member of defendant PEP, personally told
plaintiff Josh Lyman that he needed an easement for ingress and egress to
access the property. The title reports
confirmed the same fact—“[t]he lack of a right of access recorded in insurable
form to and from said land to a public street†and the “[l]ack of right of
recorded access to and from said premises.â€
From their conversations and the title reports, therefore, plaintiffs
were aware and understood before buying the property that there was no recorded
legal access to it.
Based on
this evidence, the court determined that plaintiffs had merely “ ‘rolled the
dice,’ †and purchasing the property with the knowledge they had no legal
access was “astonishing.†In the court’s
view, their “actions are fairly characterized as willful, or at very least, as
grossly negligent, and through their conduct alone, have caused the controversy
by encroaching on the property of their neighbors.†There is ample evidence to support the trial
court’s finding, and we can find no abuse of discretion in refusing to grant an
easement in equity when the purchasers bought a parcel they knew was landlocked
and made no attempt to negotiate an easement before consummating the sale.
Plaintiffs’
conduct was more akin to the property owner in Linthicum who, knowing his neighbors had used a roadway over the
parcel he planned to purchase, bought it anyway and then attempted to enjoin
his neighbors’ use. The trial court had
little difficulty in assessing the relative equities. The neighbors had used
the roadway for many years before discovering any potential problem, a problem
they believed was resolved when the Forest Service did not provide them the
promised permit. (Linthicum, supra, 175
Cal.App.4th at p. 264.) Unlike
plaintiffs, they had no notice prior to purchasing their property that they did
not have the legal right to use the roadway.
Plaintiffs, like their counterparts in Linthicum, bought their property with knowledge of the facts and
gambled anyway. In both cases the trial
courts, sitting in equity, did not abuse their discretion by aborting the
plaintiffs’ attempts to take advantage of their neighbors.
Nor can
plaintiffs compare their nonchalant approach to proceeding with the purchase of
property they knew lacked legal access with the diligent investigation undertaken
by the landowners in Tashakori. The trial court found they “reasonably relied
on inaccurate representations by the real estate broker and the prior owner,
and the legal description contained in the preliminary title report†and
believed that there was a recorded easement that allowed access. (Tashakori,
supra, 196 Cal.App.4th at p.
1007.) Plaintiffs, on the other hand,
willfully ignored the information they received from the title reports and from
defendant PEP, and ask us to save them from their recklessness at defendants’
expense. This we cannot do.
Moreover,
plaintiffs have a misguided notion that their conduct was somehow irrelevant
because others had used County Road 81 as a public road long before they ever
purchased the property. In other words,
even if their conduct was willful or negligent, they could rely on the innocent
conduct of others who “created†the encroachment. There is no authority for their argument;
indeed, it is at odds with the principles reiterated in the cases they cite
regarding equitable easements.
In these
cases the courts balance the equities between the persons encroaching on
another’s land and the landowners. “The
‘relative hardship’ test helps courts assess whether to deny injunctive relief
to a property owner and instead grant an equitable easement to the encroaching
user. To create an equitable easement,
‘three factors must be present. First,
the defendant must be innocent. That is,
his or her encroachment must not be willful or negligent. The court should consider the parties’
conduct to determine who is responsible for the dispute. Second, unless the rights of the public would
be harmed, the court should grant the injunction if the plaintiff “will suffer
irreparable injury . . . regardless of the injury to defendant.†Third, the hardship to the defendant from
granting the injunction “ ‘ “must be greatly disproportionate to the hardship
caused plaintiff by the continuance of the encroachment and this fact must
clearly appear in the evidence and must be proved by the defendant. . . .†[Citation.]’
[Citation.]†(
As noted
above, plaintiffs cannot surmount the first hurdle—their conduct was not
innocent. The trial court’s findings,
supported as they are by substantial evidence, were sufficient to deny the
equitable easement. But the trial court
addressed the second and third factors as well, concluding that the easement
would unfairly limit the development potential for both defendants. Plaintiffs complain that whatever limitation
on development potential defendants might conceivably suffer pales in
comparison to the irreparable injury they will suffer when their property
becomes landlocked.
We need not
weigh in on this controversy. The trial
court noted that plaintiffs had failed to explore any alternative easements
over other neighbors’ property. Whether
or not they did or should have does not change the pivotal finding that the
dispute was of plaintiffs’ own doing. We
note that doubtful cases should be decided in favor of the landowner and not
the encroacher. (Linthicum, supra, 175
Cal.App.4th at p. 266.) Here there is
not even room for doubt. Plaintiffs knew
what they were buying, knew they did not have legal access to the property,
bought it anyway, and then attempted, as the trial court found, to extort their
neighbors. On this record, we cannot say
the trial court abused its discretion in denying them an equitable easement.
III
Trespass
Defendant
PEP cross-complained for trespass based on the appearance of a $20 fence
on its property. Plaintiffs appeal the
$100 damage award to cover the cost of removing the fence. They contend there is no substantial evidence
to support a finding that they constructed or instructed anyone else to
construct the fence. We must agree.
Plaintiff Josh
Lyman testified he did not install the fence, nor did he have anyone install it
on his behalf. Defendant PEP presented
no evidence as to who constructed the fence or when it was done. The court’s finding was based solely on the
inference it drew that plaintiffs benefited from the existence of the
fence. But since there was no evidence
to substantiate when the fence appeared, it is pure speculation that plaintiffs
alone benefited from it. In fact,
plaintiff Josh Lyman testified that there was a tenant on this section of PEP’s
land who was running cattle and was concerned that those cattle would get off
his property. According to plaintiffs,
the fence benefited the tenant because it restrained the cattle grazing on the
PEP property from entering onto other parcels.
We agree
with plaintiffs that a “ ‘mere scintilla of evidence need not be affirmed on
review.’ [Citation.]†(Kuhn
v. Department of General Services (1994) 22 Cal.App.4th 1627,
1633.) “While substantial evidence may
consist of inferences, such inferences must be ‘a product of logic and reason’
and ‘must rest on the evidence’ [citation] . . . .†(Ibid.) Inferences that are the result of mere
speculation or conjecture cannot support a finding. (Ibid.) The trial court’s finding rests not on the
evidence, but on mere speculation and conjecture.
DISPOSITION
The
judgment is reversed insofar as it awards damages to PEP of $100 for trespass;
in all other respects, the judgment is affirmed. Respondents shall recover costs on appeal.
RAYE ,
P. J.
We concur:
ROBIE , J.
HOCH , J.
