EMORY D. LANIER AND RACHEL I. LANIER, HIS WIFE, APPELLANTS,
v.
WILLIAM E. JONES AND REBECCA J. JONES, HIS WIFE; AND BENNIE H. HUDSON AND VIOLA E. HUDSON, HIS WIFE, INDIVIDUALS, APPELLEES
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
The appellants, owners of servient land burdened by an easement for ingress and egress, sought to enjoin the appellees from constructing a dock over that land into the St. Johns River. The court affirmed the trial court's summary judgment, holding that the right to construct a dock is an appurtenant riparian right necessarily implied within an easement for access to riparian waters.
The court affirmed summary judgment, holding that riparian rights necessary or consistent with the purposes of an easement are impliedly granted to the easement owner, and that the right to build and maintain a dock to facilitate access to waters is an implied incident of an easement for ingress and egress to riparian property.
[1] An easement for ingress and egress to the waters of a river may implicitly grant the right to construct a dock to facilitate such access, provided the dock is necessary a…
[2] The owner of a dominant estate may improve, maintain, or repair an easement to facilitate its use.
Previewing 2 of 4 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“it is clear that such riparian rights necessary and incidental to access and egress from the Bay were implicit in the reservation of the Parkway. Just as accreted land would necessarily be burdened by the easement as a necessary implication of the reservation, so too the right to build a dock to facilitate access to the waters is implied.”
Establishes the core principle that riparian rights necessary to access waters are impliedly granted with an easement for ingress and egress
Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceThe Laniers own servient land over which a 26-foot-wide easement for ingress and egress runs from Florida State Road 13 to the St. Johns River. The Jo…
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Burden On Servient Estate cases and more on FLexlaw
GOSHORN, Chief Judge.
A majority of this court has agreed to consider this case en banc. We withdraw the per curiam affirmance previously issued by the panel and issue in its stead the following opinion affirming the summary judgment of the trial court. All parties agree that the facts are not in dispute. The issue on appeal is whether the trial court correctly applied the law.
The appellants own the servient land over which an easement for ingress and egress was granted to the appellee adjacent landowners. The easement is 26 feet wide and runs from the southerly right-of-way line of Florida State Road 13 to the waters of the St. Johns River. In order to facilitate the use of their easement, the appellees built a dock extending into the river. The appellants conceded below that the appellees’ easement entitled the appellees to ingress to and egress from the waters of the St. Johns River. Further, the appellants did not dispute below that the owner of a riparian right may erect, subject to state and federal regulation, docks or other physical structures into the riparian waters under appropriate circumstances. See Freed v. Miami Beach Pier Corp., 93 Fla. 888, 112 So. 841 (1927). Instead, the appellants alleged in their amended complaint:
9. The dock was constructed in such a manner as to interfere with the riparian rights of Plaintiffs and their rights to unobstructed view, privacy and quiet enjoyment of their property.
10. As a direct and proximate result of the construction of said dock, Plaintiffs have been and will be damaged by the increased liability to their land, and by the substantial change of use and increased burden on the perpetual easement.
In determining the instant case, the trial court relied on Cartish v. Soper, 157 So. 2d 150 (Fla. 2d DCA 1963). In Cartish, the owners of a riparian easement sought to construct a dock to facilitate their right of ingress to and egress from the waters of Boca Ciega Bay in St. Petersburg. The Second District Court of Appeal held:
[I]t is clear that such riparian rights necessary and incidental to access and egress from the Bay were implicit in the reservation of the Parkway. Just as accreted land would necessarily be burdened by the easement as a necessary implication of the reservation, so too the right to build a dock to facilitate access to the waters is implied.
Accordingly, insofar as riparian rights are necessary to or consistent with the purposes of the easement, they are impliedly granted to appellees and, as a corollary, reserved from the appellant fee owners. Cf. Feig v. Graves, supra [100 So. 2d 192]; City of Tarpon Springs v. Smith, 1921, 81 Fla. 479, 88 So. 613; Geigor v. Filor, 1859, 8 Fla. 325.
Id. at 153-54. Cartish is consistent with well established law that a dominant estate easement owner is entitled to prepare, improve, maintain, or repair the easement in order to facilitate its use. See 20 Fla.Jur. 2d, Easements § 35 (1980).
In the instant case, the trial court found that despite the construction of the dock, the appellants continued to enjoy the benefits of the easement which they shared with the appellees as well as the riparian rights of their fee ownership of contiguous property. This finding is well supported by the admission that the appellants enjoy their own private dock located within 100 feet of the appellees’ dock and that the appellants’ dock extends into the river further than the disputed dock. The undisputed evidence further shows that the property owner on the other side of the appellees’ easement had also constructed a dock to facilitate the use of that owner’s riparian rights. Accordingly, the evidence supports the trial court’s finding that the appellees needed a dock to facilitate use of their easement. Thus, under Cartish, the trial court properly held that the appellants could not deny the appellees the use and enjoyment of their easement in this case.
AFFIRMED.
COBB, HARRIS, PETERSON, GRIFFIN, DIAMANTIS and THOMPSON, JJ., concur. DAUKSCH, J., dissents with opinion in which W. SHARP, J., concurs.
DAUKSCH, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent for the reasons stated in my dissent to the original panel decision.
W. SHARP, J., concurs.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
Secret Oaks Owner's Ass'n, Inc. v. Dep't OF Env't Prot., 704 So. 2d 702 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998)…rian rights and, therefore, lack legal standing to even maintain the subject Petition. 3. Petitioner argues that it enjoys riparian rights as an incident of the easement granted under the Declaration. Petitioner relies primarily on Lanier v. Jones, 619 So. 2d 387 (Fla. 5th DCA 1993) and Cartish v. Soper, 157 So. 2d 150 (Fla. 2d DCA 1963), for the proposition that an easement holder can possess riparian rights. Respondent cites Hume v. Royale[Royal], 619 So. 2d 12 (Fla. 5th DCA 1993) as an example of a case i…1 / 2
-
Parlato v. Secret Oaks Owners Ass'n, 689 So. 2d 320 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997)…located” on the easement. Moreover, even without the reference to a dock to be built in the future, SOOA, as the dominant estate easement owner, is entitled to prepare, improve, maintain, or repair an easement to facilitate its use. Lanier v. Jones, 619 So. 2d 387 (Fla. 5th DCA 1993). The stated use in the declaration of this easement was for lot owners to have pedestrian access to the river. Furthermore, as pointed out by the trial court, the agreement does not address the possibility of constructing a new d…
Authorities Cited
- City of Tarpon Springs v. Smith, 81 Fla. 479 (Fla. 1921)
- Freed Freed v. Miami Beach Pier Corp., 112 So. 841 (Fla. 1927)
- John H. Geiger and others v. James Filor and others, 8 Fla. 325 (Fla. 1859)
- Cartish v. Soper, 157 So. 2d 150 (Fla. 2d DCA 1963)
- Feig v. Graves, 100 So. 2d 192 (Fla. 2d DCA 1958)