Simone v. Heidelberg

Summary

The New York Court of Appeals held that a reciprocal driveway easement was extinguished when the dominant and servient parcels came under common ownership. The easement was not recreated because the deed conveying the servient estate did not reference or reserve it, and notice of the former easement was insufficient. The court also held that no easement by necessity existed because access was not absolutely necessary at the time of severance.

Holdings

1. An easement extinguished by merger cannot be recreated over the servient estate when the common owner first conveys the servient estate without reserving or referencing the easement and later conveys the dominant estate with easement language. The later deed cannot burden the previously conveyed parcel because the grantor no longer had title or an estate in the servient tenement.
2. Actual notice that an easement once existed does not recreate an easement that was extinguished before the purchaser acquired the servient property and was not recreated by the common owner's first conveyance of that property.
3. Defendants did not establish an easement by necessity because, although unity and subsequent separation of title existed, an easement over the servient property was not absolutely necessary at the time of severance; the claimed need for off-street parking was merely a convenience.

Questions Presented

1. Whether an easement extinguished by merger when adjacent parcels came under common ownership can be recreated through a deed conveying the dominant estate when the servient estate had previously been conveyed without reference to the easement.
2. Whether actual notice by subsequent owners of the servient estate can recreate an extinguished easement that was not recorded in the servient estate's chain of title.
3. Whether defendants established an easement by necessity when the claimed need for access arose only after the estates were severed and concerned off-street parking rather than indispensable access to the property.

Disposition

reversed