Melrose Fish and Game Club, Inc. v. Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, LLC (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-073-16)

NOTICE:  All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.  If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us   14-P-1762                                       Appeals Court   MELROSE FISH AND GAME CLUB, INC.  vs.  TENNESSEE GAS PIPELINE COMPANY, LLC. No. 14-P-1762. Middlesex.     November 17, 2015. – June 20, 2016.   Present:  Cypher, Trainor, & Rubin, JJ. Easement.  Real Property, Easement.  Estoppel.  Subdivision Control, Decision of planning board.  Practice, Civil, Injunctive relief.  Laches.       Civil action commenced in the Superior Court Department on April 23, 2013.   The case was heard by Kimberly S. Budd, J., on motions for summary judgment.     Brian J. McNelis for the plaintiff. Dianne R. Phillips (Nathaniel F. Hulme with her) for the defendant.     RUBIN, J.  The plaintiff, Melrose Fish and Game Club, Inc. (club), sued Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, LLC (TGP) in Superior Court for trespass because of TGP’s alleged interference with an easement[1] and breach of contract.  The suit arises from TGP’s construction, in 1998, of a natural gas pipeline facility across the entire width of Cheever Avenue in Saugus, a paper street over which the club claims an easement. On cross motions for summary judgment, the Superior Court judge allowed TGP’s motion and denied the club’s.  The judge ruled, first, that the breach of contract claim was barred by the six-year statute of limitations in G. L. c. 260, § 2; second, that the club’s easement over Cheever Avenue had been extinguished before it filed suit, either by estoppel or by frustration of purpose; and, third, that even if the easement still existed, the club’s request for injunctive relief would be barred by laches.  The club appeals the second and third rulings.  We reverse.      Background.  The club owns three lots of land in Saugus near the Melrose border.  TGP owns a lot that shares a border with one of the club’s lots.  The land making up these four lots, along with much of the surrounding land in Saugus, was once owned by Wilbur F. Newhall.  In 1910, a plan subdividing Newhall’s land into dozens of different lots was recorded at the registry of deeds (1910 plan).  The 1910 plan shows Cheever Avenue bounding lots 76-80, amongst others, on their northeast sides.  Up until around 1999, Cheever Avenue was entirely a paper street.[2] In 1963, the club acquired lots 78-80 from Saugus (club lots), which had acquired the lots by tax takings between 1930 and 1951.  The original deeds for those lots, as […]

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