Freightways Terminal Co. v. Industrial & Commercial Construction, Inc.

381 P.2d 977, 1963 Alas. LEXIS 138
CourtAlaska Supreme Court
DecidedMay 24, 1963
Docket291
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 381 P.2d 977 (Freightways Terminal Co. v. Industrial & Commercial Construction, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Alaska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Freightways Terminal Co. v. Industrial & Commercial Construction, Inc., 381 P.2d 977, 1963 Alas. LEXIS 138 (Ala. 1963).

Opinion

AREND, Justice.

This is a declaratory judgment action in which the plaintiff below sought the declaration of an easement for ingress and egress across the lands of the defendants. The trial court declared in favor of the plaintiff and the defendants have appealed.

Since the factual situation with respect to the land areas and roadways involved is not a simple one, we have found it helpful to make use of the following sketch in formulating a statement of the case for the reader:

*979 The outermost lines of the sketch represent the original boundaries of the Robert Ward Leslie Homestead, a rectangular 80-acre tract of land, nearby the City of Fairbanks and contiguous on the east to Peger Road, a public road. In 1953 or 1954 Leslie entered into an oral agreement to sell the south half (forty acres) to Donald R. Wright and brother. This agreement was later reduced to writing with some modifications and provided that the Wrights could transfer certain portions of the acreage they were buying to other persons directly through Leslie. The Wrights have since defaulted on the contract, apparently after the several conveyances hereinafter discussed.

The areas designated on the sketch as “A”, “D”, “E”, “F” and “G” represent smaller tracts or parcels carved out by the Wrights from the property they were purchasing from Leslie. Donald Wright negotiated the sale of tract “A” to Richard L. Rivers. The tract was deeded on April 23, 1954, by the Leslies, husband and wife, directly to Rivers and the money received by Wrights from the sale was used as the down payment to Leslie for the entire acreage being purchased by them.

At the time of the sale of tract “A”, easements were discussed between Rivers and the Wrights. They orally agreed that Rivers would give thirty feet from tract “A” and the Wrights would give thirty feet from tract “D” to provide a 60-foot roadway through the two tracts. 1 Even before the issuance of the deed to Rivers, the parties had already “pushed in” the road to provide access from Peger Road to the airfield which both were using at the time and which is shown on our sketch as lying just inside the west boundary of the forty-acre tract.

At right angles to this 60-foot roadway, the Wrights then constructed another road running southward along the west boundary of tracts “E” and “F”. The original plan was to build a “horseshoe loop” road around combined tracts “A”, “E” and “F” as outlined on the sketch, but the ground where the proposed road would have gone around the southwest corner of tract “F” was found to be too swampy and poorly drained to be economically feasible for completion of the project.

By warranty deed Rivers conveyed tract “A” to Consolidated Freightways, Inc., on March 5, 1957, and Consolidated in turn conveyed the tract on September 8, 1958, to Freightways Terminal Co., one of the defendants in this action. Neither deed mentions the 60-foot roadway across tracts “A” and “D” or reserves an easement for a roadway across tract “A”. On this point, Wright testified that he had asked Rivers tó specify such an easement in Rivers’ deed of tract “A” to Consolidated Freightways, Inc., and that Rivers responded, “I don’t want to get the paper work all fouled up with a bunch of additives * * * just leave it the way it is.”

On April 30, 1957, the Leslies deeded tract “D” to Donald R. Wright and on the same date Wright deeded the tract to George M. Sullivan, the other defendant in this case. The instruments of conveyance are warranty deeds. Both reserve an easement for a road thirty feet wide, being the north thirty feet of the tract, but neither deed mentions the 60-foot roadway in question or an easement over the south thirty feet of the tract. Prior to the issuance of these last two deeds, Wright and Sullivan discussed the possibility that someday Sullivan might want to sell or lease tract “D” to the owner of tract “A” so that the two properties could be operated as a single tract and not be divided by the existing 60-foot roadway.

According to Wright’s testimony, it was agreed between him and Sullivan that if one Wilbur G. Vehmeier, who then had a contract to buy tract “E” and needed the 60- *980 foot roadway across tracts “A” and “D” for access to Peger Road, had no objection the easement for an access road could be changed. Provision was therefore made in the deeds to tract “D” for an easement from Peger Road over the north thirty feet of the tract; and it seems to have been contemplated that an additional easement immediately outside the west boundary of tract “D” would be obtained from the Les-lies so that the substitute 30-foot roadway could be extended to tract “E”. It does not appear in the record that such additional easement was ever obtained from the Les-lies.

Wright persisted in his testimony that Sullivan agreed that the easement for the existing 60-foot roadway was to stand unless and until Sullivan could get Vehmeier to accept the alternate access road and the same had been constructed. Sullivan and Vehmeier never got together to discuss the easement question, and Wright stated that he himself did nothing more than to run a ditch for a power line on the proposed 30-foot roadway and that this ditch would eventually have been made into a roadway if Sullivan and Vehmeier had agreed to close the 60-foot roadway.

In the spring of 19S6, Wright orally agreed to sell tract “E” to Vehmeier for the location of a warehouse. To consummate the sale, the Leslies on April 30, 1957, issued a deed for tract “E” to Wright, who in turn deeded to Vehmeier on January 20, 1958. As Vehmeier was cognizant of the ■ 60-foot roadway across tracts “D” and “A”, he did not require that an easement for the roadway be specified in the deeds. However, the deeds do mention the 60-foot roadway by way of designating a portion of it as the north boundary of tract “E”. 2

Vehmeier testified that before he received his deed to tract “E”, he conducted a survey of the tract, using a plat of the Leslie Homestead furnished him by Wright. This plat showed the 60-foot roadway across tracts “A” and “D” and its extension along the north boundary of tract “E”. Vehmeier proceeded to develop tract “E” by laying gravel at the east side thereof and by moving a building onto the premises partly with the help of Garrison Fast Freight whose business Rivers was managing at the time. All hauling for this development work was done across the 60-foot roadway in question.

Vehmeier also testified that Rivers was cognizant of the survey which Vehmeier was making, as above mentioned, and of the plat furnished him by Wright for that purpose; that the oral agreement between Wright and Vehmeier for the sale of tract “E” and the survey thereof were made as early as 1956; and that Vehmeier in 1956 got Rivers, at that time manager of Garrison Fast Freight (apparently a pseudonym for defendant Freightways and its predecessor Consolidated), to move a military surplus warehouse building in panels onto tract “E” over Peger Road and the subject 60-foot roadway.

Vehmeier’s daughter and son-in-law moved a trailer onto the tract in the fall of 1958 but lived there only until the summer of 1959.

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Bluebook (online)
381 P.2d 977, 1963 Alas. LEXIS 138, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/freightways-terminal-co-v-industrial-commercial-construction-inc-alaska-1963.