NY Court Rules on Easement Rights: Important Update for Long Beach Homeowners

This week we wanted to bring to your attention an interesting case decided in the 2^nd Department wherein the Appellate Court affirmed a lower court’s order dismissing a Plaintiff’s Complaint which claimed that the Defendant’s easement for ingress/easement across Plaintiff’s property was abandoned and unenforceable. Notwithstanding that the Easement was not properly recorded against Plaintiff’s property, both the Lower and Appellate Courts found in favor of the Defendant and dismissed the Plaintiff’s Complaint based on the specific facts of the case.
The relevant facts of, as well as a link to, the case are set forth below:

The Plaintiff and Defendant are the respective owners of the adjoining parcels of real property located in Long Beach. The Plaintiff commenced the action seeking a judgment declaring, inter alia, that a 1996 judgment which granted a right of way easement over the northeastern corner of Plaintiff’s property for vehicular ingress and egress was improperly recorded and was, therefore, invalid. Based on the documentation submitted to the Court, it was uncontroverted that the judgment granting the Easement was not recorded against a specific tax lot that included Plaintiff’s property. The Plaintiff’s Complaint also included claims that Defendant abandoned the easement, and that the easement was unenforceable pursuant to RPAPL 1951. The Lower Court, inter alia, granted the Defendant’s motion to dismiss the complaint. The Appellate Division, Second Department affirmed.

In analyzing Plaintiff’s claim that the Easement was not properly recorded against the Plaintiff’s property, the Second Department determined that the Plaintiff failed to properly contest the 1986 judgment granting the Easement by way of motion in the prior action but instead tried to challenge the improper recording of the Easement by commencing this new action. With that claim dispensed with on procedural grounds, the Court focused on Plaintiff’s claim that the Easement was abandoned because the Defendant’s lot remained vacant and unused. The Second Department found the abandonment claim unpersuasive and held the alleged nonuse of the property, standing alone, is insufficient to constitute the abandonment of the easement. The Court cited legal authority that it was necessary for Plaintiff to “…..establish both intention to the abandon and also some overt act or failure to act which carries the implication that the owner neither claims nor retains any interest in the easement’ (citation omitted)”. The Court held that the plaintiff failed to meet those requirements.

In addressing and rejecting the Plaintiff’s final argument that the easement was unenforceable pursuant to RPAPL 1951 the Court reasoned as follows:

RPAPL 1951 provides that “[n]o restriction on the use of land created at any time by covenant, promise or negative easement…shall be…determined to be enforceable, if, at any time the enforceability of the restriction is brough in question, it appears that the restriction is of no actual and substantial benefit to the persons seeking its enforcement or seeking a declaration or determination if its enforceability.” Here the Defendant demonstrated that RPAPL 1951 does not apply because the easement is an affirmative easement, rather than a covenant, promise, or negative easement(citation omitted).

https://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2024/2024_04063.htm