Motion Motors, Inc. v. Berwick

846 A.2d 1156, 150 N.H. 771, 2004 N.H. LEXIS 70
CourtSupreme Court of New Hampshire
DecidedApril 20, 2004
DocketNo. 2003-008
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 846 A.2d 1156 (Motion Motors, Inc. v. Berwick) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of New Hampshire primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Motion Motors, Inc. v. Berwick, 846 A.2d 1156, 150 N.H. 771, 2004 N.H. LEXIS 70 (N.H. 2004).

Opinion

DALIANIS, J.

The defendants, Kenneth G. and Doris D. Berwick, appeal orders of the Superior Court (Fitzgerald, J.) that: (1) the Berwicks could not maintain a claim for enhanced damages under RSA 227-J:8 (2000); (2) the Berwicks’ gravel rights did not extend to the entire eastern half of the property owned by the plaintiff, Motion Motors, Inc. (Motion Motors); and (3) the Berwicks must remove the sawmill upon Motion Motors’ demand. While the trial court addressed some issues as if both Berwicks had the rights in question, we note that the reservations of rights in the gravel, timber and sawmill were reserved to Kenneth Berwick personally. Motion Motors cross-appeals, arguing that the trial court erred by: (1) granting the Berwicks’ petition to quiet title; (2) not admitting the testimony of certain witnesses; (3) dismissing Motion Motors’ claim for damages; (4) ruling that Motion Motors had unlawfully terminated the Berwicks’ mineral rights and extending those rights an additional three years; (5) denying Motion Motors’ request for discovery of the drafting attorney’s personal notes; and (6) granting the Berwicks’ motion for a directed verdict. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

The record establishes the following facts. On March 24, 1988, Motion Motors purchased real property from the Berwicks, which Motion Motors had been renting from the Berwicks. At that time, the Berwicks’ son, Michael Berwick, and Ralph Langevin each owned fifty percent of Motion Motors. The property is a square plot of land in Loudon, connected to Ricker Road by a twelve-foot wide “panhandle” that runs approximately 200 feet adjacent to the Berwicks’ property. The Berwicks’ property borders Ricker Road and, except for the “panhandle,” separates Motion Motors’ property from the road. The property conveyed consists of approximately 10.4 acres. Additionally, there is a sawmill on the conveyed property, which was used by Kenneth Berwick before and after the sale.

Motion Motors purchased the property by a quitclaim deed, which contained a metes and bounds description of the property, set out certain [773]*773covenants and reservations, including a reservation for future use of the sawmill, and incorporated by reference an agreement (referenced agreement). The referenced agreement was revised on March 24, 1993 (revised agreement). Both parties argue that there are conflicts among the grants, covenants, and reservations in each document, as well as ambiguities within each document. Motion Motors has sought to sell its interest in the parcel. To date, any proposed sales have been contingent upon Motion Motors securing a release of Kenneth Berwick’s reservation of the use of the sawmill.

We begin with the Berwicks’ issues on appeal. They first appeal the denial of their counter-claim seeking enhanced damages for the unauthorized felling of timber.

When the Berwicks sold the property to Motion Motors, they reserved “under Kenneth G. Berwick, personally, ... the rights to harvest and remove all standing timber” on the property for fifteen years. The Berwicks allege that Motion Motors unlawfully invaded that right by cutting down trees on the property.

In matters of statutory interpretation, this court is the final arbiter of the intent of the legislature as expressed in the words of a statute considered as a whole. Estate of Ireland v. Worcester Ins. Co., 149 N.H. 656, 661 (2003). We look first to the statutory language itself, and, where possible, we ascribe the plain and ordinary meanings to words used. Id. If the language is plain and unambiguous, we need not look beyond the statute for further indications of legislative intent. Id. The trial court’s interpretation of a statute is a question of law, which we review de novo. Pennelli v. Town of Pelham, 148 N.H. 365, 366 (2002).

RSA 227-J:8 states, in pertinent part:

I. No person shall negligently cut, fell, destroy, injure, or carry away any tree, timber, log, wood, pole, underwood, or bark which is on the land of another person... without the permission of that person____
II. [A]ny person who violates the provisions in paragraph I shall forfeit to the person injured no less than 3 and not more than 10 times the market value of every such tree, timber, log, lumber, wood, pole, underwood, or bark cut, felled, destroyed, injured, or carried away.

The Berwicks rely upon Smith v. Kennett, in which we recognized that the statute provides damages for the “benefit of the person injured, that is, for the benefit of the owner of the trees, not the owner of the land,” Smith [774]*774v. Kennett, 80 N.H. 14, 14 (1921), and argue that, as the owner of the trees, they are entitled to enhanced damages.

■ The penalty provided in RSA 227-J:8 is intended to protect trees as a marketable resource. See Peaslee v. Koenig, 122 N.H. 828, 831 (1982). The statute has two criteria to qualify for damages. First, the timber in question must have been situated on “the land of another person.” RSA 227-J:8, I. Second, the person bringing the action must have been “the person injured.” RSA227-J:8, II.

In Smith, the plaintiff owned property and the defendant owned certain timber on that property, which he had purchased from the plaintiff. After the time period had expired for the defendant to cut down his purchased timber, he entered the plaintiffs land and over the plaintiffs objection cut down the timber. The plaintiff brought an action against the defendant claiming enhanced damages under a statute virtually identical to RSA 227-J:8. See PS 244:1 (1891); Smith, 80 N.H. at 14. We ruled that, although the defendant had committed an unlawful entry onto the plaintiffs land, the plaintiff was not entitled to damages under the statute because the plaintiff was not injured. See Smith, 80 N.H. at 14. Therefore, although the plaintiff met the first criterion, since the defendant cut down timber situated on the land of another person, the plaintiff failed to meet the second criterion because the plaintiff was not injured by the defendant’s actions since the defendant owned the timber.

In the present case the roles of the plaintiff and the defendant are reversed. Kenneth Berwick, as owner of the rights in timber, qualifies as a person injured by the felling of the timber. Thus, the question is whether Motion Motors felled timber “on the land of another person.” The Berwicks argue that timber rights should qualify as an interest in land sufficient to satisfy this requirement. They further argue that RSA 227-J:8 is a trespass statute and that chopping down the trees of another is considered trespass to land in other contexts.

In Lake v. Sullivan, 145 N.H. 713, 717 (2001), interpreting an almost identical predecessor statute, see RSA 539:1 (Supp. 1994) (repealed 1995), we held that a tenancy did not qualify as “land of another” for the purposes of section I of the statute. Similarly, timber rights do not qualify as “land of another” for the purposes of RSA 227-J:8, I. The statute applies to timber felled on the land of another person. The legislature could have, but did not, provide that it apply when a party fells timber belonging to another person. See RSA 227-J:12, I (2000) (“No person shall knowingly cut out or alter the mark of any mill log or cut into any lumber or log belonging to another person____” (emphasis added)); see also Clifton Iron [775]*775Co.

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Bluebook (online)
846 A.2d 1156, 150 N.H. 771, 2004 N.H. LEXIS 70, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/motion-motors-inc-v-berwick-nh-2004.