{"id":408,"date":"2018-07-10T21:38:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T21:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/?p=408"},"modified":"2023-12-15T21:57:41","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T21:57:41","slug":"courts-may-consider-extrinsic-evidence-to-interpret-ambiguous-easements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/2018\/07\/10\/courts-may-consider-extrinsic-evidence-to-interpret-ambiguous-easements\/","title":{"rendered":"Courts may consider extrinsic evidence to interpret ambiguous easements"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A Massachusetts appellate court had the difficult tasking of deciding whether a view easement prohibited all structures or only structures over eight feel high.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mass.gov\/files\/documents\/2018\/04\/30\/17P0746.pdf\" class=\"mtli_attachment mtli_pdf\">MacLean v. Conservation Comm&#8217;n of Nantucket,<\/a>(Mass. App. Ct. 2018). The easement language created a &#8220;view easement which prohibits any and all structures and\/or vegetation with a height greater than eight (8\u2019) feet from existing grade upon and over said lot.&#8221; The court held that &#8221;\u00a0the absence of a comma after the word &#8216;structures&#8217; combined with the use of the term &#8216;and\/or&#8217; makes it unclear whether the eight-foot height restriction applies only to vegetation or to structures as well.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Id.<\/em>at 3. That ambiguity made the meaning of the language a question of fact to be determined by the trial court on remand.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"taxonomy-category wp-block-post-terms\"><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/easements\/\" rel=\"tag\">Easements<\/a><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__separator\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/servitudes\/\" rel=\"tag\">Servitudes<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Massachusetts appellate court had the difficult tasking of deciding whether a view easement prohibited all structures or only structures over eight feel high.\u00a0MacLean v. Conservation Comm&#8217;n of Nantucket,(Mass. App. Ct. 2018). The easement language created a &#8220;view easement which prohibits any and all structures and\/or vegetation with a height greater than eight (8\u2019) feet from existing grade upon and over said lot.&#8221; The court held that &#8221;\u00a0the absence of a comma after the word &#8216;structures&#8217; combined with the use of the term &#8216;and\/or&#8217; makes it unclear whether the eight-foot height restriction applies only to vegetation or to structures as well.&#8221;\u00a0Id.at 3. That ambiguity made the meaning of the language a question of fact to be determined by the trial court on remand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[29,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-easements","category-servitudes"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"jsinger","author_link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/author\/jsinger\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}