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SUPREME COURT SHOULD NOT HAVE, SUA SPONTE, SEARCHED THE RECORD AND ISSUED A DECLARATORY JUDGMENT ALLOWING PLANTIFFS TO PAVE AN EASEMENT (FOURTH DEPT).

The Fourth Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined Supreme Court should not have, sua sponte, searched the record and issued a declaratory judgment allowing plaintiffs to pave an easement and further should not have granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment. Plaintiffs have an easement which allows access to their driveway. Plaintiffs alleged the easement needed to be paved because their vehicle would hit bottom crossing it:

A party’s right of passage over an easement carries with it the ” right to maintain it in a reasonable condition for such use’ “… . The right to repair and maintain an easement includes “the right to carry out work as necessary to reasonably permit the passage of vehicles and, in so doing, to not only remove impediments but supply deficiencies in order to construct [or repair] a suitable road’ “… . The right to repair and maintain, however, is “limited to those actions necessary to effectuate the express purpose of [the] easement’ ” … , and thus the work performed must not “materially increase the burden of the servient estate[] or impose new and additional burdens on the servient estate[]” … . Relatedly, the servient landowner has a “corresponding right[] to have the natural condition of the terrain preserved, as nearly as possible’ . . . and to insist that the easement enjoyed shall remain substantially as it was at the time it accrued, regardless of whether benefit or damage will result from a proposed change’ ” … . …

Defendant contends on his appeal that the court erred in searching the record and entering a declaratory judgment in plaintiffs’ favor. We agree. As an initial matter, although plaintiffs did not seek declaratory relief, the court has the authority to “grant any type of relief within its jurisdiction appropriate to the proof whether or not demanded, imposing such terms as may be just” (CPLR 3017 [a]…). We conclude, however, that the declaration was not appropriate given the evidence presented here. Tarsel v Trombino, 2018 NY Slip Op 08779, Fourth Dept 12-21-18

 

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