Burch

This is a quiet title action between owners of adjoining properties. In 1998, plaintiff purchased property having no vehicular access to or from any public road. Because her property is “landlocked,” she seeks to establish, without payment of consideration to defendants, an “easement by necessity” over an existing private road that crosses defendants’ property and connects to a public highway. Under California common law, such an easement requires examination of the circumstances of the original conveyance by the “common owner” that severed what is now defendants’ property from what is now plaintiff’s landlocked property. In this case, the federal government was that common owner, and it first conveyed defendants’ property without expressly reserving a right of access to plaintiff’s property, which it retained. The question is whether a right of access nonetheless arose by implication based on the circumstances surrounding that conveyance, including whether or not a strict necessity for access resulted and the inferences reasonably drawn regarding the parties’ intent.

Given the distinctive nature and history of federal land grants and the government’s power of eminent…