The Title Reporter — Winter 2022

Here is what we cover in this issue of The Title Reporter: A Legal Update for the Title Insurance Industry:

• A Delaware trial court has ruled that plaintiffs suing a title insurer for breach of a title insurance policy would not be able to present damages evidence on lost wages, carrying costs, lost opportunity costs or lost earnings because the policy did not indemnify “for consequential damages.”
• A federal district court in Pennsylvania has rejected a lawsuit brought by a property owner claiming that a title insurer breached a title insurance policy by failing to indemnify the property owner in an action concerning a land dispute, finding that the property owner was not an “insured” under the policy and, therefore, that no coverage was owed.
• An appellate court in New York has affirmed a trial court’s decision to permanently enjoin a property owner from interfering with an easement over her property.
• An appellate court in New York has upheld a trial court’s decision enforcing a stipulation that prevented a property owner from locking a gate during daylight hours and otherwise unreasonably blocking public access under a walking easement to property located on the Hudson River.
• An appellate court in New York has upheld a decision by a town board that its decision to condemn an easement so it could access and maintain a drainage pipe was a “Type II” action under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (“SEQRA”) and, therefore, did not require a full environmental assessment.
• A New York trial court, in a case arising out of a boundary dispute between owners of two parcels of property, has rejected five easement claims brought by property owners against their neighbor for adverse possession, easement by prescription, easement by estoppel, easement in gross and easement appurtenant.
• An appellate court in Massachusetts, affirming a trial court’s decision, has ruled that property owners may drive all-terrain vehicles (“ATVs”) on an easement appurtenant to their property for the limited purpose of accessing a beach in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Michael J. Heller, Peter P. McNamara, and Matthew V. Spero