Stevens v. Powell

Urner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant owns a lot of ground extending from Market Street to Willow Street in Pocomoke City. There is an alley way on the lot, for a part of its length, affording access to Willow Street and serving certain properties fronting on Clarke Avenue. The appellee is the owner of a lot of ground which fronts on that avenue and is adjacent to an interior lot, separately acquired by her, which abuts upon an open area, on the appellant’s lot, where the alley terminates.

The question in this case is whether the appellee has a right to the use of the alley as appurtenant to her interior lot. It was decreed below that such a right exists, and an injunction was directed to be issued for its protection against the appellant’s interference. The width of the alley where it enters Willow Street is nine and a half feet. It becomes slightly narrower at various ⁶⁰⁶ points along its course, but is nowhere less than eight and a. quarter feet in width.

The open space into which the alley-leads has a width of fifteen feet and two inches where it adjoins the interior lot of the appellee. Erom 1904 until 1919 the alley was used as a driveway to' the rear of a storage building on that lot, but since 1919 the appellant has prevented its use for the benefit of the appellee’s lot by depositing large quantities of iron pipes .and other materials in the open area at the point where it had -afforded an outlet from her building. The appellee’s inner lot was formerly included in a lot fronting on Market Street, and was conveyed in 1903 by the owner of the whole lot to the appellee’s predecessor in title. By the deed thus conveying the part in question, all the- rights, ways, privileges, and appurtenances belonging thereto were also expressly granted.

The grantor in that conveyance had acquired the entire lot in 1902 by a deed from William McMullen, which included the grant of “the right of entrance over an eight-foot alley in the rear of said lot to Willow Street.” In 1893 William McMullen and his co-owner at that time of the whole lot, which will hereafter be referred to as the McMullen lot, conveyed to Lloyd Wilkinson and wife, who then held title to the lot now owned by the appellant, the right to use a stairway in the building of the grantors fronting on Market Street, as a means of access to the second floor of a building owned by the grantees, “in consideration of a right of entrance- over an eight-foot alley in the rear of the said lot owned by” the grantors. When the appellant obtained in 1912 the lot on which the alley in dispute is located, the deed conveying the title expressly stated that it was subject to a right of way “over an eight-foot alley to- William McMullen’s lot.” Because the deed by which William McMullen and others granted a stairway easement to the owners of the lot since conveyed to the appellant, in consideration of a right of way over an eight-foot alley in the rear of the grantors’ lot, was not executed also by the grantees, it is argued on behalf of the appellant that an easement in the alley was not thereby ⁶⁰⁷ created, and the description of the alley in the deed is said to be insufficient for the purposes of a conveyance. It appears from the evidence that, after the execution in 1893 of fhe deed just mentioned, the alley leading to Willow Street was actually used in connection with the McMullen lot, of which the appellee now owns a part, and was being used as a driveway to her portion of the lot when the deed conveying the servient lot to the appellant in 1912 was executed. The course of the way over the available area is shown by the evidence to have been defined by its user during the long period of its existence.

If, upon the authority of Dawson v. West. Md. R. Co., 107 Md. 70 , cited by