GERARD WALRAVEN v. WILLIAM SANTOS JR. and ELEANOR SANTOS

Plaintiff Gerard Walraven claims the right to use defendants William and Eleanor Santos’ lakeside beach on theories of express, implied, or prescriptive easement. The case was tried before me, jury-waived. Based on the testimony and exhibits admitted into evidence at trial, my assessment of the credibility, weight and inferences to be drawn from that evidence, and as more fully set forth below, I find and rule that Mr. Walraven has no such rights.

Facts and Analysis

The parties are plaintiff Gerard Walraven, the owner of the property at 8 May Avenue in Middleborough, and defendants William and Eleanor Santos, whose home on Woods Pond (sometimes referred to as Woods Lake) (11 May Avenue) is directly across the street from Mr. Walraven’s. Some geography is helpful to an understanding of the case and is shown on the attached Exhibit 1.

The Santos property is on the pond side of May Avenue and has 111’ of shoreline, the center portion of which is sandy beach. The Walraven lot is on the other side of May Avenue and is not on the pond. May Avenue, a private way, connects on its eastern end with Atwood Avenue (formerly called Woods Lake Terrace) which, in turn, leads south to the main roads of Middleborough and north to the private ways and public-access beaches along the eastern side of Woods Pond. May Avenue connects at its other (western) end with Wollow Avenue, a twenty-foot wide private way that dead ends at Woods Pond. There is a flat shoreline area and pier within the May Avenue right of way where it meets the water, used by the nearby residents for swimming, fishing and boating (“the Wollow Avenue beach”). [Note 1] See Trial Ex. 66 (photograph). The Santos’ beach (the sandy area of the Santos’ shoreline) is to the north of the Wollow Avenue beach, separated from it by a wide, grassy strip. See Trial Exs. 42, 49, 50, 58, 64. As noted above, Mr. Walraven claims an appurtenant right to use the Santos’ beach on theories of express, implied and prescriptive easement. I address each of these contentions in turn.

Express Easement

Whether an express easement exists depends on the terms of the affected parties’ deeds and deed chains. Both the Walraven and Santos properties were once owned by the late Maria Wiellowicz, so she would have had the right to create a beach easement on the Santos parcel benefiting the Walraven lot had she so chosen. The inquiry thus turns on the proper interpretation of her deeds to those properties. “The basic principle governing the interpretation of deeds is that their meaning, derived from the presumed intent of the grantor, is to be ascertained from the words used in the written instrument, construed when necessary in the light of the attendant circumstances.” Sheftel v. Lebel, 44 Mass. App. Ct. 175 , 179 (1998). A party claiming rights over another’s land has the burden of proving the existence of those rights. Duddy v. Mankewich, 75 Mass. App. Ct. 62 , 66 (2009).

Mr. Walraven received his property directly from Ms. Wiellowicz, and it is described in his deed by reference to a November 5, 1959 plan (the “1959 plan”). Deed, Wiellowicz to Walraven (Nov. 20, 1959). A copy of the 1959 plan is attached as Exhibit 2 (the Walraven parcel is Lot 2). That plan neither shows nor references what later became the Santos property, nor shows nor references Woods Pond, nor shows nor references a beach of any type. Likewise, the language of the Walraven deed neither mentions nor references what later became the Santos lot, much less identifies its beach or the location or dimensions of its beach — something that would have been relatively easy had the grantor truly intended to grant beach rights on that property.

What the Walraven deed does say is this. It grants a “right of way in common with others, over Woods Lake Terrace [now Atwood Avenue] and May Avenue as shown on [the 1959] plan and over the existing rights of way, so far as the same are now in force and being, to the beach and to the public highway.” (emphasis added). The beach so referenced is not identified. I find and rule that this language does not grant an easement to use the Santos’ beach, but rather at most to the Wollow Avenue beach, i.e. the flat area and pier at water’s edge within the 20’ Wollow Avenue right of way. See Exhibits 1 and 3 and Trial Ex. 66. I make this finding for four reasons.

First, as noted above, there is no reference to the Santos property in the Walraven deed, and no reference to the burden of a beach easement anywhere in the Santos deed chain. Both would have been expected had a beach easement been intended.

Second, the grant is of a right of way over roads, not a more extensive use outside the boundaries of those roads. [Note 2] In the circumstances of this case, if the grant truly had been intended to create an easement to use a beach outside those rights of way, significantly burdening a property soon to be deeded to others without mention of such a burden, [Note 3] surely the grant would have said so in an unambiguous way, making clear the location, scope and purpose of that easement. [Note 4] In these circumstances, the absence of such language is not due to a lack of “careful drafting,” see Murphy v. Olsen, 63 Mass. App. Ct. 417 , 422 (2005), but rather evidence that there was no such intent.

Third, precisely the same rights, using precisely the same “right of way” language, were subsequently granted to what is now the Santos property. Deed, Maria Wiellowicz to W. Henry Wiellowicz (Oct. 1, 1963). [Note 5] This shows that that language was intended to grant rights within the Wollow Avenue right of way alone, not rights to the Santos lot. A fee owner does not need, and legally cannot receive, easement rights in his or her own land. See L. Jones, A Treatise on the Law of Easements, Baker Voorhis & Co., New York City (1898) (hereafter “Jones on Easements”) § 835, pp. 671-672 (“No person can have an easement in land which he himself owns.”); Goldstein v. Beal, 317 Mass. 750 , 754 (1945) (“So long as there was a common ownership of the two parcels there could be no easement in favor of one lot operating as a burden on the other.”). The owner of the Santos property would not need the right to use his or her own beach, but would need the right to use the one at Wollow Avenue. [Note 6]

Fourth, Ms. Wiellowicz’ intent to limit her grant to the Wollow Avenue right of way is clearly reflected in the language of two of her earlier deeds for other nearby lots. The first, a 1956 grant, conveys:

a right in common with others, to pass and re-pass over a passageway or right of way, twenty (20) feet wide, adjacent to the easterly line of the granted premises, to and from Wood’s Pond and also, with the right to pass and re-pass over a passageway or right of way, twenty (20) feet wide, extending from the granted premises over other land of the grantor, to Wood’s Lake Terrace, so called, a private way, and over said Wood’s Lake Terrace to and from the public highway southerly of said private way.

Deed, Wiellowicz to Yarombowski (Jul. 25, 1956) (emphasis added). The second, in 1958, refers to “a twenty foot driveway leading to the Beach at Wood’s Pond” and grants the lot:

Together with a right of way in common with the other grantees from this grantor, to pass and re-pass over said driveway, to and from the Beach and over the other driveways established for the benefit of the grantees from this grantor, to and from Wood’s Lake Terrace.

Deed, Wiellowicz to Derocher (May 27, 1958) (emphasis added). Neither of those grants (“pass and re-pass over”) can be construed as conveying the right to use the beach on the neighboring lot, i.e. the Santos property, for recreational or similar purposes. Other and further language would have been used if that was the intent.

Mr. Walraven cites Anderson v. DeVries, 326 Mass. 127 (1950) as a contrary holding and one which controls this case. I disagree. The language in Anderson — “a right of way to the beach over the way shown on [Land Court Plans 15396C & D] as Beaton Road, and along the westerly side of Lot B2 as shown on Plan No. 15396B” — may bear a surface similarity to the language in the Walraven deed. But the facts in Anderson from which that language was extended to include a right to use a larger area, not just the beach within the right of way, are far different from this situation. First, the party in Anderson contending that such a right was granted was the grantor of all the deeds in question, both the burdened and benefited parcels, and the court found that the grantor specifically told the grantee of the burdened lot that it was subject to these beach rights. Anderson, 326 Mass. at 131. There was thus no question of the grantor’s intent and the burdened grantee’s understanding of that intent. In contrast, the fact that the grantor in this case (Ms. Wiellowicz) had no such intention is evidenced by the nature and content of her discussions with the purchasers of her lots, [Note 7] her subsequent deed of the Santos lot to her son Henry Wiellowicz without reference to the burden of any beach easement, and Mr. Wiellowicz’ consistent and emphatic insistence throughout his ownership of the lot that no rights to its beach had been granted to others. [Note 8] Second, unlike Anderson where over eighty “back lots” were created and the right of way was only 12’ wide (see Land Court Plans 15396A, 15396C, 15396D & 15396F), here there were only a handful of lots and the right of way was 20’ wide, with a large flat area and pier at the shoreline. As the Anderson court found, the reasonable beach needs of eighty homes could not be accommodated within the confines of a 12’ wide right of way — a critical part of its holding that rights to the entirety of the beach were intended. Anderson, 326 Mass. at 134. Here, the Wollow Avenue area with its 20’ of shoreline and pier is more than adequate for the handful of homesites created by the Wiellowiczs. See, e.g., the trial testimony of Elizabeth West. Third, the “right of way” in Anderson was specifically identified and leads only to the beach. Here, the “right of way” reference is to a series of roads, some towards other beaches. Fourth, the deeds in Anderson were uniform, granting a right of way to the beach without limiting language. Here, the “pass and re-pass” language in the Yarombowski and Derocher deeds, both earlier than Mr. Walraven’s, makes plain that rights confined to the right of way were intended, not a right to use the abutting property. Fifth, unlike Anderson where the beach was open and undifferentiated along its entire length, there is a clear separation between the Wollow Avenue beach and the beach on the Santos property. As previously noted, there was a wide belt of grass clearly separating the sandy area on the Santos property from the Wollow Avenue right of way. See, e.g., Trial Exs. 42, 49, 50, 58, 64. There could be no question that another, separate area was being entered when walking from the right of way to the Santos beach. Sixth, the Anderson beach was along the base of a bluff, not immediately in front of the homes being built on the burdened lots. Here, the beach is immediately in front of the Santos home.

Implied Easement

In the event that his “express easement” theory was rejected, Mr. Walraven also argued that he had an “implied easement” to use the beach on the Santos property based on an alleged common scheme. In support of this, he points to the nature of the community (a number of lots near the pond but without pond frontage), the pond as the attraction to the area, and Ms. Wiellowicz’s comments to several of her grantees regarding access to the pond or referencing a beach. This theory, insofar as it claims an easement on the Santos property, is not persuasive. See Houghton v. Johnson, 71 Mass. App. Ct. 825 , 832-835 (2008). First, unlike cases that have found a common scheme, there is neither a recorded plan, nor a reference in any of the deeds to a plan either recorded or unrecorded, that shows a “community beach” or any kind of beach on the Santos property. To the contrary, the plans that were recorded by Ms. Wiellowicz (see Exhibits 2 and 3) either do not show the pond at all (Exhibit 2) or, with respect to common areas at the pond, solely the land at water’s edge at the end of Wollow Road within its twenty-foot right of way (Exhibit 3) (i.e. the Wollow Avenue beach). Second, as noted above, none of the deeds to the properties in the area purports to grant an express easement over the Santos property — a startling omission if such an easement was ever intended since the burden of a community beach, on a wide stretch (over half) of the property’s limited shoreline, would be a significant burden indeed. Third, when Ms. Wiellowicz granted the Santos parcel to her son, she did not reserve an easement for the benefit of any of the neighboring lot owners — again, a telling omission. Fourth, having listened to all of the witnesses, assessed the accuracy of their memories, the effect of their biases, [Note 9] and as discussed more fully both above and below, I am convinced that when Ms. Wiellowicz spoke of a right to pond access or a beach, she referred solely to the area at water’s edge within the Wollow Avenue right of way. [Note 10] Her actions and comments regarding the beach on the now-Santos lot (the lot she continued to own and which she shortly thereafter conveyed to her son Henry) were to give those with whom she spoke permission to use that area and, as shown by their actions (again, more fully explained below), those comments were understood by them as such. Fifth, the Wollow Avenue access point, and that access point alone, is fully consistent with the creation of a “community” area for the non-waterfront lot owners — one that could be used, was used, and is used, for boats, to fish, and to swim. As previously noted, Mr. Walraven’s theory that a larger area, significantly encroaching onto the Santos property, was granted of right is wholly inconsistent with Ms. Wiellowicz’s later conveyance of that property without reserving such an easement.

Prescriptive Easement

Mr. Walraven contends that he has acquired an easement by prescription in the Santos’ beach. The requirements that must be met for such an easement are well established. It must be shown by clear proof that the use of the land “has been (a) open, (b) notorious, (c) adverse to the owner, and (d) continuous or uninterrupted over a period of no less than twenty years.” Boothroyd v. Bogartz, 68 Mass. App. Ct. 40 , 44 (2007); G.L. c. 187 § 2. To succeed, the claimant has the burden of proving each of these elements. Id.

In this case, the critical element is adversity. As the law makes clear, “no easement may be acquired by prescription except through adverse use.” Ivons-Nispel, Inc. v. Lowe, 347 Mass. 760 , 763 (1964). “To prove the use to be adverse, it is insufficient to show an intention alone to claim [the area] as of right, but that intention must be manifest by acts of clear and unequivocal character that notice to the owner of the claim [of right] might be reasonably inferred.” Houghton, 71 Mass. App. Ct. at 842 (quoting Jones on Easements § 285, p. 235). “To create the presumption of a grant of the right of way, the circumstances attending its use must be such as to make it appear that it was established for the benefit of the claimant, or that it was accompanied by a claim of right, or by such acts as manifested an intention to enjoy it, without regard to the wishes of the owners of the land. The use must have been enjoyed under such circumstances as will indicate that it has been claimed as a right, and has not been regarded by the parties merely as a privilege, revocable a the pleasure of the owners of the soil.” Jones on Easements § 266, p. 220 (internal quotations and citations omitted). Permission by the landowner – whether express or implied – negates the claimant’s adversity. Rotman v. White, 74 Mass. App. Ct. 586 , 589 (2009) (noting that “express or implied permission . . . . rebuts the presumption of adverse use.”) (internal citation omitted). Where there is a “special relationship” between the parties or, as I find here, the use began with permission, there is an additional burden on the claimant to show “by clear evidence that the use has shifted at some point from permissive to adverse, so as to put the owner on clear notice that he should take steps to protect his rights.” Begg v. Ganson, 34 Mass. App. Ct. 217 , 221 (1993). See also Lawrence v. Concord, 439 Mass. 416 , 424 (2003) (noting, in that case, that the town had not given the claimant permission to occupy the property). Here, whether analyzed as (1) “permissive use,” or (2) as an instance where the conduct in question was insufficient to put the owner on notice that a “claim of right” was being asserted, I find that Mr. Walraven failed to establish a prescriptive easement in the Santos’ beach.

Totman v. Malloy, 431 Mass. 143 (2000) sets out the general test for distinguishing between “permissive” and “non-permissive” uses. Whether a use is [permissive or] non-permissive depends on many circumstances, including the character of the land, who benefited from the use of the land, the way the land was held and maintained, and the nature of the individual relationship between the parties claiming ownership [of the land in question].

Id. at 145. To adequately put a landowner on notice that a “claim of right” is being asserted, the acts must be “plain [and] unequivocal . . . , indicating a peculiar and exclusive claim [on the part of the claimant], open and ostensible, and distinguishable from [those] of others.” Kilburn v. Adams, 48 Mass. 33 , 39 (1843). See, e.g., Daley v. Swampscott, 11 Mass. App. Ct. 822 , 829-30 (1981) (maintaining beach seven days a week from June 1 to September 15, erecting lifeguard stands, staffing the beach with lifeguards, placing and maintaining signs stating the rules for beach use, and dismantling fencing erected by the beach’s private owners, among other open and ostensible acts, resulted in town acquiring prescriptive rights in the beach). The crux thus appears to be the commission of acts that an owner would clearly see as challenging his or her rights of ownership and control over the premises.

Many of the facts are not in material dispute. Mr. Walraven and his wife purchased their lot from Ms. Wiellowicz in 1959. They were Boston residents and they and their family members, until recently, only came to the property in the summertime. They did not have a house on that lot for many years. Instead, they dug a foundation and put up a tent, then a temporary roof over the foundation, only gradually putting up a more permanent structure. When their children were small they spent a good bit of time at the beach, both within the Wollow Avenue right of way (where they fished, swam, and moored their boats) and on the now-Santos, then-Wiellowicz property.

What is significant is what they actually did, and did not do, on the then-Wiellowicz, now-Santos shoreline. Their use of its beach was only in summertime, June to mid-September, mostly on the weekends. At no time did they erect anything permanent. Instead, they would carry their coolers, chairs and toys to the beach in the morning and remove them all when they returned to their lot later in the day. They were careful to remove their trash and rake the beach to ensure their impact was as little as possible. They went to the beach primarily, if not exclusively, for their children to play (when Mr. Walraven went by himself, he would generally fish from the pier or his boat), and their visits to the beach dropped dramatically as their children grew older. They pulled weeds out of the water from time to time to make swimming easier for their children (the weeds were close to the shoreline). But this was all done by hand or hand tools with relatively minor effort, once or twice over the course of the summer, with the weeds taken away by wheelbarrow. Mr. Wiellowicz would often work with them, as well as maintain the beach on his own. They put small, strung-together floats in the water near the shoreline (no more than 4’-5’ out) to confine their children when they were young, but again were careful to take the floats out of the water and store them to the side of the beach when they left. They would see and speak with the Wiellowiczs’ at the beach, most typically when Mr. Wiellowicz was working there (he built a house and waterfall directly on the beach and did beach maintenance). The Wiellowicz’ enjoyed interacting with the children, giving them rides on Mr. Wiellowicz’ tractor. The Walravens themselves never brought a tractor, vehicle or anything mechanized to the beach while the Wiellowicz’ were alive. Most telling is the fact that the Walravens, and everyone else, complied with all of the Wiellowiczs’ instructions regarding the beach. Mr. Wiellowicz instructed them to keep the children off the rocks, and they complied. [Note 11] He told them boats could not be kept at the beach, only moored at the pier. The Walravens complied. As Mr. Wiellowicz made clear, all he wanted was for people to swim. When Mr. Wiellowicz put up fence posts in 1996 to keep vehicles from going from Wollaston Avenue onto his beach, neither the Walravens nor anyone else attempted to remove them until April 2005, after Mr. Wiellowicz’ death when no one was around to see or stop them. Indeed, the Walravens previously had complied with Mr. Wiellowicz’ instruction to keep their vehicles off the beach, even from its corner. Trial Tr. 1-211. [Note 12] When Mr. Wiellowicz was constructing his waterfall at beachside, his tractor occasionally needed the entire beach to maneuver. The Walravens stayed away at those times. The newly-constructed waterfall cascaded down to the beach and its water came from a pumping station at the shoreline whose pipe ran over the beach into the pond. The Walravens raised no objection to any of this. When Mr. Wiellowicz put a sign on a tree at the edge of the beach (July 1984), stating it was posted “to prevent acquisition of any easement by prescription or adverse possession,” they saw the sign and never questioned or challenged it. The Walraven family does not seem to have used the beach much, if at all, after 1997 when their children were grown.

These are not actions of people who believe they have rights to the beach, nor are they consistent with a clear assertion of rights. Rather, they are actions of persons who are there, and know they are there, by permission. It was only in 2005, after Mr. Wiellowicz died and the property was in his estate being marketed for sale (i.e. when there was no one on the property who would see these activities and object) that the Walravens first broke this pattern when their friend David Raymond ripped out the posts along the side of Wollow Avenue, brought sand and a tractor to expand the beach area, placed a picnic table and barrel on the beach, and began leaving his pontoon boat there. To the extent these were “adverse” acts they were far too recent (2005) to be prescriptive, and the fact that nothing like them had been attempted at any time beforehand is telling.

There was also much direct evidence that permission was expressly granted. As previously noted, Mr. Wiellowicz gave permission to Mr. Jean, a neighborhood lot owner, to use the beach whenever he wanted. Trial Tr. 1-91. Ms. Wiellowicz told Mr. Kilday, another lot owner and friend of the Walravens, that he could use the beach area, “absolutely.” Trial Tr. 1-160 – 1-161. “We have a beach for you to use.” Trial Tr. 1-173. “She loved to see people down there.” Trial Tr. 1-161. [Note 13] Similarly, Mr. Wiellowicz was “fine” with the lot owners using his beach. “He never kicked us off.” Trial Tr. 1-161. Generally, the topic never came up. Both Ms. and Mr. Wiellowicz would see and talk with the people on their beach and never raise an objection to their being there. This was because permission had already been given, and most likely given because the main users were young children (watched by their parents), there only for the summer, and who, in the case of the Walravens, had no real “playing” space back at their lot (a foundation with only a tent or temporary roof for a good part of their childhood). In the words of Mr. Kilday, the Wiellowicz’s were “always good neighbors.” Letting the children and their parents use the beach was an act of kindness and understood as such, not a cessation of rights. I do not find the testimony otherwise to be credible.

For the foregoing reasons, I find that Mr. Walraven’s use and maintenance of the beach, irrespective of the extent to which it occurred, was neither “plain [or] unequivocal,” nor did such use convey a “peculiar and exclusive claim, open and ostensible, and distinguishable from that of others,” sufficient to put Mr. Wiellowicz on notice that Mr. Walraven was claiming a prescriptive right in the beach area. Kilburn, 48 Mass. at 39 (emphasis added). [Note 14] Thus, whether analyzed as (1) “permissive use,” or (2) as an instance where the conduct in question was insufficient to put the owner on notice that a “claim of right” was being asserted, I find that Mr. Walraven failed to establish a prescriptive easement in the Santos’ beach area. See Rotman, 74 Mass. App. Ct. at 589 (“If any element [of a prescriptive easement claim] remains unproven or left in doubt, the claimant cannot prevail.”) (emphasis added).

Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, Mr. Walraven has not established an express, implied or prescriptive easement on any portion of the Santos’ property and his claims are therefore DISMISSED in their entirety, WITH PREJUDICE. Judgment shall enter accordingly.

SO ORDERED.