Dixon v. Feaster

448 So. 2d 554
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedMarch 29, 1984
Docket83-392
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 448 So. 2d 554 (Dixon v. Feaster) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dixon v. Feaster, 448 So. 2d 554 (Fla. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

448 So.2d 554 (1984)

John A. DIXON, et al., Appellants,
v.
Jacob Lynn FEASTER, et al., Appellees.

No. 83-392.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.

March 29, 1984.

*556 T. Allen Crouch, Gainesville, for appellants.

H. Randolph Klein of Klein & Klein, Ocala, for appellees.

COWART, Judge.

This case involves the right to a way of necessity as that common law concept is recognized in section 704.01(1), Florida Statutes (1981).

When he died in 1943 Jake W. Feaster left children including J. Lynn, James O., Mary Leila, and Lizzie Lois Feaster Dixon, and owned the 173 acres sketched as follows:

By agreement the children divided this property. Lizzie Lois Feaster Dixon received the northeast 40 acres; Mary Leila Feaster, the southeast 40 acres; J. Lynn Feaster, the northwest 40 acres; and James O. Feaster, the southwest 40 acres. J. Lynn and James O. took title to the 13 acre tract jointly.

When Jake W. Feaster, the ancestor, died there was a service road from county road 329 westward to the two back 40 acre tracts, which is shown as Route 1 on the above sketch. In 1946 Lizzie Lois Feaster Dixon and husband acquired the southeast acres previously owned by Mary Leila Feaster. Thereafter, sometime in the early 1950's the Dixons and James O. Feaster relocated the road to the two back 40 acre tracts to the location shown as Route 2 on the above sketch.[1] Mrs. Dixon conveyed some of her 80 acres to her children and their spouses. A few years ago J. Lynn Feaster conveyed 5 acres in his 40 acre tract to his son and daughter-in-law, Jerome W. and Patricia Feaster, who, desiring a shorter and better route to their 5 acres, filed an action against the children of Mrs. Dixon and their spouses to establish an easement of necessity under section *557 704.01(1), Florida Statutes, from the 5 acre tract easterly to County Road 329. The trial judge found that Jerome W. Feaster and wife were entitled to a way of necessity at the location shown as Route 3 on the above sketch and the defendants appeal. We reverse.

Section 704.01(1), Florida Statutes (1981), provides:

(1) IMPLIED GRANT OF WAY OF NECESSITY. — The common law rule of an implied grant of a way of necessity is hereby recognized, specifically adopted, and clarified. Such an implied grant exists where a person has heretofore granted or hereafter grants lands to which there is no accesible right-of-way except over his land, or has heretofore retained or hereafter retains land which is inaccessible except over the land which he conveys. In such instances a right-of-way is presumed to have been granted or reserved. Such an implied grant or easement in lands or estates exists where there is no other reasonable and practicable way of egress, or ingress and same is reasonably necessary for the beneficial use or enjoyment of the part granted or reserved. An implied grant arises only where a unity of title exists from a common source other than the original grant from the state or United States; provided, however, that where there is a common source of title subsequent to the original grant from the state or United States, the right of the dominant tenement shall not be terminated if title of either the dominant or servient tenement has been or should be transferred for nonpayment of taxes either by foreclosure, reversion, or otherwise.

As section 704.01(1), Florida Statutes, makes clear, in order to entitle an owner of a dominant estate to a way of necessity over the servient estate both properties must have at one time been owned by the same party. This requirement is called a "unity of title". The first relevant "unity of title" involved in this case was that held jointly by the heirs of Jake W. Feaster at the time of his death. The Feaster heirs (J. Lynn Feaster and James O. Feaster) who took the two back (west) 40 acre tracts reserved no express access easement over their interest in the front (east) two 40 acre tracts and were conveyed no express access easement by their coparceners. Perhaps J. Lynn and James O. Feaster received the additional 13 acre tract to equalize the difference in value between the front tracts with their value enhanced by ready road access and the value of the back tracts with their access problem. Or perhaps they obtained the 13 acres tract to assure themselves substantial but imperfect access from the county road to the two back 40 acre tracts. In any event, assuming contrary to these possibilities and most favorably to the two back 40 acre tracts, a way of necessity for access to them across the front 80 acres could reasonably be implied by law. However, the implied or presumed right of way for access would be that located at Route 1 because an actual way across the front tracts giving access to the two back tracts existed and was in actual use for that purpose at that location at that time and, therefore, there was no need or reason to imply its location at any other point.

Next, the Dixons and James O. Feaster then agreed to swap the location of the right of way from its location at Route 1 to the location shown as Route 2. Because these persons were all persons then owning the lands to which benefit or detriment resulted from the right-of-way swap, no one else can complain as to their action and those persons who made the swap are not now complaining in any way. Specifically, Lizzie Lois Feaster Dixon is not complaining about the fact that where Route 2 moves from the 13 acres tract to the southwest 40 acres owned by James O. Feaster it cuts a corner around a pond and transgresses a little across some of her property in the southwest corner of the southeast 40 acres.

Although it does not appear to affect or effect a proper result in this case, a second "unity of title" results from the fact that in 1949 J. Lynn Feaster sold his northwest *558 40 acres and his joint interest in the 13 acre tract to his brother James O. Feaster who, in 1962, reconveyed the northwest 40 acres to J. Lynn Feaster. The reconveyance would appear to be adequate to remove any question about the legal basis for implying a way of necessity in favor of the northwest 40 acres down and over Route 2 as it crosses the southwest 40 acres and the 13 acre tract.

A third "unity of title" and way of necessity would appear to result in favor of the 5 acre tract sold by J. Lynn Feaster to appellees Jerome W. Feaster and wife. This would appear to exist over the lands between the 5 acre tract and the north end of Route 2 at the southwest corner of the 35 acres retained by J. Lynn Feaster.

In addition to the requirement of unity of title from a common source, and in order that a grant of a way of necessity be implied by the common law, the common source of title must have caused the dominant estate to have become landlocked. See 2 Thompson on Real Property, § 364 at 405 (rev. ed. 1980). Here the partition by the heirs of Jake W. Feaster in 1945 did not cause appellee Jerome W. Feaster's 5 acre tract, or even the 40 acre tract of which it is a part, to become landlocked because its owners had access to the county road by the use of the existing road at Route 1 and they swapped that right for the right to use Route 2 which continues to date to give access from the two back 40 acre tracts to the county road. Because of the existing actual way of ingress and egress at Route 1 in 1945 there was no basis for implying a way of necessity at any other location.

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Bluebook (online)
448 So. 2d 554, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dixon-v-feaster-fladistctapp-1984.