Morehouse v. Dux North LLC
Annotate this CaseIn this case decided by the Indiana Supreme Court, plaintiff Dux North LLC, the owner of a landlocked property in rural Hamilton County, Indiana, sought an implied easement over adjacent property owned by defendants Jason and Sarah Morehouse. Dux North claimed either an implied easement by prior use or an implied easement of necessity over the Morehouse property. The court clarified that these two types of implied easements are conceptually different. For an implied easement by prior use, the claimed servitude must predate the severance creating the separate parcels. For an implied easement of necessity, the claimed necessity need to arise only at severance and not before. Thus, Dux North could seek relief under either implied easement, and the failure of one such easement does not necessarily defeat the other. Furthermore, the court held that an implied easement of necessity requires a showing that access to the property by another means is not just impractical but impossible. The court then reversed the trial court's judgment granting Dux North's motion for summary judgment on the easement-by-prior-use claim and denying the Morehouses' motion for partial summary judgment on the easement-of-necessity claim. The case was remanded for further proceedings to decide whether Dux North has an easement by prior use over the Morehouse property.
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