Real Estate & Property Law

Tennessee App: No Inverse Condemnation When Utility Used Electricity Easement For Fiber Optic Cable

By Robert Thomas (inversecondemnation.com)

Not a landmark case, but one worth noting. In Mathews v. City of Chattanooga, No. E2009-01418-COA-R3-CV (Sep. 15, 2010), the Tennessee Court of Appeals rejected the property owner's claim that the city exceeded the scope of a utility easement when it installed fiber optic cable. The property owner asserted the easement was limited to electric service.

The trial court entered summary judgment for the city on the basis of the statute of limitations because the plaintiff had waited too long from the time the fiber optic cable was installed to assert his claim. The court of appeals affirmed, but on different grounds. It wasn't a matter of time, the court held, because the plaintiff had no claim for inverse condemnation at all. The city "had the unquestioned lawful right to install the fiber optic cable within the easement for the transmission of electric service," slip op. at 3, and the plaintiff admittted there was no real difference between using the cable to transmit electricity and using the cable to trasmit light pulses. Slip op. at 7-8. That being so, there was no intereference with the plaintiff's use and enjoyment of his property, and therefore no taking. The court concluded:

This Opinion is not intended to give carte blanche to easement holders to begin using easements for additional purposes. Our holding is limited strictly to the facts in this case wherein Defendants were able to demonstrate that Plaintiffs were unable to establish an essential element of their claim, i.e., that a taking had occurred.

Slip op. at 8. There's a good summary of Tennessee inverse condemnation law in the extended quote on pages 5 and 6 of the slip opinion that's worth reading.

Full post as published by inversecondemnation on September 22, 2010 (boomark / email).