Relocating Easements

In the Gopum case, the easement holder, operator of a strip mall, acquired the easement over servient owner’s adjacent property in 1993. The easement provides access to the lower level of the mall. The easement agreement includes a survey depicting the location of the easement. In its 2021 complaint, the easement holder alleged that the servient owner had placed obstructions over the easement, blocking access to the lower level. The servient owner contended that he had relocated the easement to an area adjacent to the driveway, which still provided access to easement holder’s lower level. Supreme Court granted summary judgment to the easement holder, and the Appellate Division affirmed, starting with the principle that once an easement is definitively located by grant its location cannot be changed unilaterally by either party. In this case, the easement agreement itself depicted the easement’s location. Moreover, the court noted that, in any event, the easement holder had established that the relocation substantially impaired its use of the easement.