Seabrook Island

SC Supreme Court’s footnote impacts easement law

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In a March 17 case*, the South Carolina Supreme Court made a thought-provoking comment on easement law through a footnote.

As with most real estate cases involving neighbors, the facts in this case are interesting. (I should probably admit the facts may only be interesting to dirt lawyers.) Paul and Susan McLaughlin bought Lot 22 in Seabrook Island and spent the next six years meeting and negotiating to build on the lot because of the existence of a pipe and an easement they were told had been abandoned.

The backstory involves a draining pipe and easement running through the backyards of seven lots. The easement and pipe were originally owned by Seabrook Island Property Owners Association (SIPOA). Over the years, the pipe degraded and became porous such that, aside from carrying away stormwater from the road, as intended, it also drained standing water from the lots. Nearly 20 years later, SIPOA installed a new draining system for the road, rendering the old one obsolete. At a property owner’s request, SIPOA abandoned the easement, but left the porous pipe in place.

After six excruciating years, the McLaughlins received home design and location approval from SIPOA, including the right to build on a former “no-build area” occupied by the abandoned easement. They removed the pipe and built their new home.

Neighbors Richard and Eugenia Ralph owned Lot 23 and sued claiming their backyard flooding became even worse as a result of the pipe removal. The jury awarded the Ralphs $1,000 in “nominal” damages. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for a new trial on damages alone, and the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated the jury’s verdict.

I won’t dwell on the remainder of the opinion, which deals mostly with litigation issues, but I wanted to point dirt lawyers specifically to footnote 5.

The Ralphs claimed some sort of ownership right in the abandoned easement, which the Supreme Court did not feel the need to address. But the Supreme Court did express concern over the Court of Appeals discussion of a seminal easement case in South Carolina, Blue Ridge Realty Co. v. Williamson**.

Blue Ridge is the case we rely upon for the right of property owners who buy lots with reference to a plat to use the roads shown on that plat. Without that case, many properties would have access issues.

The Supreme Court voiced concern over the alteration of a quote from the Blue Ridge case by the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals quoted the case: “It is generally held that when the owner of land has it subdivided and platted into lots and (easements,) and sells and conveys the lots with referenced to the plat, he hereby dedicates said (easements) to the use of such lot owners (and) their successors in title…”

Blue Ridge actually said, “It is generally held that when the owner of land has it subdivided and platted into lots and streets and sells and conveys the lots with reference to the plat, he thereby dedicates said streets to the use of such lot owners, their successors in title, and the public. (Emphasis added by the Supreme Court in the current case.)

The Supreme Court said the scenarios presented by the current case and the Blue Ridge case were fundamentally different. Blue Ridge involved the claim of a property owner to use a public street shown on a recorded plat. In the current case, lot owners whose property contains an easement intended for the benefit of the HOA claims an ownership interest because the easement inadvertently benefits the property owner as well.

In Blue Ridge, the property owner and its successors in title were the intended beneficiaries.  Here, the opposite is true. The owners of Lots 22 – 28 were never intended to benefit directly from the easement. The fact that they did so, according to the Supreme Court, was a pure accident, caused by the unexpected degradation of the pipe. In short, Blue Ridge does not stand for the proposition for which it was cited by the Court of Appeals, according to the Supreme Court.

This distinction might be significant in many of the title scenarios real estate practitioners face routinely.

Interesting indeed! I also find it interesting that the Supreme Court refers to the Blue Ridge case, as we dirt lawyers refer to it, as the Williamson case, but that’s a blog for another day.

*Ralph v. McLaughlin, South Carolina Supreme Court Opinion 28015, March 17, 2021.

**247 S.C. 112, 145 S.E.2d 922 (1965).

Seabrook Island drainage dispute leads to interesting case

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Owners’ association could not act unilaterally to terminate an easement

Seabrook Island map

The South Carolina Court of Appeals reversed an easement decision from the Charleston County Circuit Court last week and remanded the case for a new trial on compensatory and punitive damages in a controversy surrounding a drainage easement on Seabrook Island.*

The case involved a dispute between two couples, the Ralphs and the McLaughlins, who owned residential lots on Seabrook Island. In 1984, developer E.M. Seabrook, Jr. recorded a plat depicting blocks 32 and 33 of Seabook Island. To alleviate draining issues concerning several lots in block 32, the plat reflected a 20-foot drainage easement running between lots 21 and 22 and depicted a no-build area across the back of the lots.

The Ralphs bought lot 23 in 1997. The McLaughlins’ predecessors bought Lot 22 a year or so later and, in 2002, approached the Seabrook Island Property Owners Association (SIPOA) about eliminating the easement and no-build area on their lot. The SIPOA agreed and prepared a new plat entitled “Plat Showing Abandonment of an Existing 20’ Drainage Easement, Lot 22, Block 32”. The plat also indicated the no-build area was to be abandoned.

The McLaughlins bought Lot 22 later in 2002. In 2006, they approached SIPOA’s Architectural Review Board about building a house. The plans were approved with several stipulations, including the requirement that the McLaughlins assume the responsibility for the underground drainage line and the abandoned draining easement.

Over the course of the next year the McLaughlins sought financing for their construction. At some point, they received a call from the chair of the SIPOA legal committee indicating there were issues concerning the drainage pipe. A meeting was scheduled for the owners of lots 21 – 28 to discuss the easement, and several neighbors objected to the removal of the pipe because of the potential adverse effects on drainage.

The neighbors continued to express concerns, and on October 22, 2008, SIPOA sent a letter rescinding the resolution abandoning the easement. In December, the McLaughlins emailed the neighboring property owners asserting that there was no easement on their property, stating they had been patient with SIPOA, and they would begin constructing their home. They then authorized their contractor to remove the pipe. They built part of their home over the no-build area and the area formerly containing the pipe.

In 2011, the Ralphs filed a complaint seeking actual and punitive damages alleging the McLaughlins caused flooding and poor drainage on the Ralphs’ property. The McLaughlins filed an answer and a third-party complaint against SIPOA alleging reliance on representations. The McLaughlin’s case centered on the theory that they had justifiably relied on SIPOA and the purported abandonment of the easement in removing the pipe.

The circuit court granted SIPOA’s motion for summary judgment, finding there was no evidence to show SIPOA had made any promises to the McLaughlins and, as a matter of law, the McLaughlins could not have reasonably relied on SIPOA. The circuit court also directed a verdict in favor of the defendants on punitive damages because, he said, Mr. McLaughlin believed he had the right to remove the pipe.  At trial, the jury awarded the Ralphs $1,000 in damages for trespass.

The Ralphs argued on appeal that the circuit court failed to apply the findings of fact and conclusions of law in the grant of summary judgment to the SIPOA as the law of the case. The Court of Appeals agreed stating that since the defense was significantly based on the theory that the McLaughlins reasonably relied on SIPOA, the finding that this reliance wasn’t reasonable in the summary judgment motion should have applied to the controversy between the Ralphs and the McLaughlins.

The Court of Appeals also held that the directed verdict as to punitive damages was inappropriate because there was more than one reasonable inference that could be drawn from the evidence that the McLaughlins acted with reckless regard for the property rights of the Ralphs.

Significantly for dirt lawyers, the Court of Appeals held that the SIPOA could not have unilaterally abandoned the drainage easement because every lot owner had an ownership interest in the easement as a result of the plat that originally established the easement and the deeds in the respective chains of title that incorporated the plat by reference. The Court made the point that while it is well settled law that an owner of an easement may abandon the easement, it is also well settled that only easement owners are authorized to take such action.

Since the Ralphs had established an ownership interest in the easement as a matter of law, the Ralphs were entitled to enforce the easement, and the case was sent back to the lower court for a determination of damages by the jury.

* Ralph v. McLaughlin, Court of Appeals Opinion 5681 (August 21, 2019)

Charleston is exploding!

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The locals are expecting a quarter-million neighbors!

Last weekend, about sixty commercial dirt lawyers attended South Carolina Bar’s Dave Whitener Real Estate Intensive Workshop in Kiawah Island. This workshop is held every-other-year and honors the memory of the late, great real estate lawyer and law school professor who planned and moderated it for many years until his untimely death in 2014. I think Dave would have enjoyed the collaboration and education we all enjoyed last weekend*.

And I think he would have been shocked at changes in the Charleston area!

Charleston Ravenel Bridge

Charleston is exploding! Kiawah Island itself is in the throes of a major renovation anticipating its next PGA tournament in 2021. As we left Kiawah Island early Sunday morning, a time we could survey our surroundings with no traffic, we were amazed at the new subdivisions that have sprung up between the beautiful island and I-26 as well as those in the North Charleston area where the Boeing plant is located. The area is changing so fast it’s hard to recognize even for someone who does business in the area and visits it often.

I was not surprised to see this Charleston Post and Courier article entitled “105,000 homes await construction in the Charleston metro area” by David Slade dated July 18. The article begins with the premise that Charleston-area residents are about to welcome 250,000 neighbors—roughly equal to the population growth Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester Counties have experienced since 1990. Wrap your brain around that thought! The anticipated housing, according to this report, is nearly enough to accommodate the combined populations of Charleston and neighboring Mount Pleasant, which are the largest and fourth-largest cities in South Carolina.

Traffic is already horrible in the area. We hear from many lawyer friends and their staff members who fight increasing traffic to get into work each morning. When the I-526 bridge over the Wando River was closed recently for emergency repairs, we heard that some lawyers found it easier to take boats to work rather than to deal with the detour around the bridge. The emergency repairs required for this bridge are an example of the challenged infrastructure in the area.

But, as this article points out, area governments will see added tax revenues from the new growth, which will be needed for the roads and other infrastructure. Mr. Slade points out that residents of John Island, Kiawah Island, Seabrook Island and Wadmalaw Island have been waiting for many years for planned improvements to the Maybank Highway and River Road intersection which bottlenecks each day. The islands are beautiful places to live, but getting into Charleston to work can be problematic at best.

Charleston is the number 1 tourist destination in the United States and the number 2 tourist destination in the world. All of us in the real estate business will be looking with interest as this anticipated growth unfolds in the Holy City and its surrounding areas.

 

*Among the speakers this year was Dave’s widow, also a commercial real estate lawyer extraordinaire, Patricia Wharton Whitener, and two of Dave’s best friends, litigator Robert E. Stepp and USC Law Professor S. Alan Medlin. The line-up was excellent, and I encourage other lawyers who practice in the area of commercial real estate to attend this workshop at each offering!