Indiana Rule: Unexercised “Floating” Pipeline Easement Rights Do Not Become Fixed by Time, Practice, or Acquiescence

I. Introduction

In Close Armstrong, LLC v. Trunkline Gas Company, LLC (7th Cir. Mar. 31, 2026), the Court of Appeals addressed a recurring tension in utility-right-of-way disputes: landowners seek certainty (often to enable conservation, development, or financing), while pipeline operators seek to preserve contractually reserved flexibility for future infrastructure needs.

Trunkline Gas Company, LLC (“Trunkline”) owns and operates the “100 Line,” a natural gas pipeline installed in 1960 across two Indiana properties now owned by Close Armstrong, LLC, and Randall and Jaymie Dickson (collectively, “landowners”). The dispute arose when the landowners pursued a federal conservation program requiring clear title and manageable encumbrances. A title examination revealed 1959 right-of-way agreements granting Trunkline broad pipeline rights, including rights to:

  • construct and operate “one or more” pipelines;
  • “select, change, or alter” pipeline routes across the properties; and
  • install “additional lines” not necessarily parallel to the existing pipeline.

The landowners contended Trunkline’s easement should be treated as limited to a 66-foot corridor historically cleared and maintained around the 100 Line. Trunkline counterclaimed that the agreements preserved continuing rights to lay additional, non-parallel lines and to relocate the line(s) elsewhere on the properties.

The district court resolved the case in two phases. Phase one (not appealed) held the agreements created “floating” (blanket) easements. Phase two (the appeal) asked whether Trunkline’s unexercised future rights under those floating easements must be judicially “fixed” to a defined location under Indiana law.

II. Summary of the Opinion

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court. It held that, under Indiana law, only exercised floating easement rights may become fixed; Trunkline’s remaining, reserved, future rights—such as laying additional non-parallel pipelines or altering routes—are not fixed merely because Trunkline has historically used a 66-foot corridor for the existing 100 Line.

The court also declined to certify a state-law question to the Indiana Supreme Court. It concluded certification was unnecessary because existing Indiana easement doctrine allowed the federal court to reach the answer “with certainty.”

III. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

1. Federal “Erie” framework and predicting state law

  • Werner v. Auto-Owners Ins. Co., 106 F.4th 676 (7th Cir. 2024) and Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938): The court situated the case in classic diversity posture. The Seventh Circuit’s task was to decide the easement question as the Indiana Supreme Court would, using Indiana substantive law, not federal common law.

2. Certification standards (and timing)

  • Lehman Bros. v. Schein, 416 U.S. 386 (1974): Certification is discretionary; it is not required whenever state law is unsettled.
  • State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Pate, 275 F.3d 666 (7th Cir. 2001): The Seventh Circuit emphasized its “circumspection” in certification given costs and delay, and framed the controlling question: whether the federal court is “genuinely uncertain” about state law on an issue vital to the case.
  • Nat'l Cycle, Inc. v. Savoy Reins. Co., 938 F.2d 61 (7th Cir. 1991): Trunkline argued the request was untimely because it was not made in district court. The Seventh Circuit clarified Nat’l Cycle as a prudential consideration (wasted resources after federal courts already “sank” time into prediction), not a categorical waiver rule barring certification on appeal.
  • Winebow, Inc. v. Capitol-Husting Co., 867 F.3d 862 (7th Cir. 2017), and 7th Cir. R. 52(a): These authorities reinforced that the Seventh Circuit may certify even after a district court has addressed the issue.
  • Am. Safety Cas. Ins. Co. v. City of Waukegan, 678 F.3d 475 (7th Cir. 2012): Certification is more apt where intermediate state courts conflict; the absence of conflict weighed against certification here.

3. Summary judgment lens

  • Reid Hosp. & Health Care Servs., Inc. v. Conifer Revenue Cycle Sols., LLC, 8 F.4th 642 (7th Cir. 2021) and Blow v. Bijora, Inc., 855 F.3d 793 (7th Cir. 2017): The Seventh Circuit reviewed de novo and, because Trunkline won below, drew reasonable inferences in the landowners’ favor—yet still found no legal basis to “fix” unexercised rights.

4. Indiana easement doctrine: fixed vs. floating; fixation upon exercise

  • Town of Ellettsville v. De-Spirito, 111 N.E.3d 987 (Ind. 2018): The court used De-Spirito for Indiana’s definitions: an easement is “fixed” if the instrument specifies location (or the law requires a specific position), and “floating” if not limited to a specific part of the servient land. This conceptual framework was the backbone for rejecting landowners’ attempt to impose a location on rights not yet used.
  • Panhandle E. Pipe Line Co. v. Tishner, 699 N.E.2d 731 (Ind. Ct. App. 1998), holding modified on other grounds by Fraley v. Minger, 829 N.E.2d 476 (Ind. 2005): The landowners invoked Tishner to argue Indiana courts fix pipeline easements. The Seventh Circuit treated Tishner as supporting only a narrower proposition: Indiana courts may determine the extent/width and location of an easement as to the pipeline already placed (i.e., an exercised right), not a separate, future right to lay additional non-parallel lines.
  • Rees v. Panhandle E. Pipe Line Co., 452 N.E.2d 405 (Ind. Ct. App. 1983): Cited (via Tishner) for the authority of trial courts to determine the extent of an easement of undefined width, again in the context of existing pipelines—exercised uses.
  • Dudgeon v. Bronson, 64 N.E. 910 (Ind. 1902): Provided the classic fixation-by-exercise rule: when an easement is granted without definite location, the parties’ exercise of it “in a particular course or manner” with mutual consent renders it fixed. The Seventh Circuit used Dudgeon to distinguish “exercise” of a right from mere “non-use” of other reserved rights.
  • Kwolek v. Swickard, 944 N.E.2d 564 (Ind. Ct. App.), transfer denied, 962 N.E.2d 644 (Ind. 2011): The landowners’ “acquiescence” theory failed because Indiana’s doctrine may settle the location of a poorly defined easement, but does not rewrite the scope of rights granted by an express easement.

5. Indiana’s freedom-of-contract emphasis in property arrangements

  • Haegert v. Univ. of Evansville, 977 N.E.2d 924 (Ind. 2012) (quoting Fresh Cut Inc. v. Fazli, 650 N.E.2d 1126 (Ind. 1995)): These decisions supported the opinion’s normative anchor: Indiana presumes contracts reflect bargained-for allocations of risk and benefit. The Seventh Circuit used this to resist creating, via “fixation,” a limitation Indiana courts have not recognized.
  • Town of Ellettsville v. De-Spirito, 111 N.E.3d at 994: Cited for the proposition that Indiana’s approach to easements stabilizes expectations, land ownership, and valuation—reinforcing that courts should honor bargained-for easement flexibility absent a recognized doctrinal basis to curtail it.

B. Legal Reasoning

The Seventh Circuit’s reasoning proceeds in three linked steps.

  1. Identify the nature of the servitude: The 1959 agreements created a floating (blanket) easement—its existence and breadth were resolved in phase one and not challenged on appeal. The operative point for phase two was that the instrument expressly contemplated multiple pipelines, non-parallel placements, and route alterations.
  2. Apply Indiana’s fixation rule as tied to “exercise”: Indiana law permits fixation of a floating easement once the easement holder actually exercises a given right (e.g., installs a pipeline or establishes a path). The court treated Indiana’s cases (De-Spirito, Dudgeon, and the pipeline cases) as consistent: fixation is a consequence of use of a particular right, not a penalty for leaving other contractual rights in reserve.
  3. Reject “practice/acquiescence” as a mechanism to eliminate expressly reserved future rights: The landowners offered evidence that Trunkline historically maintained only a 66-foot corridor, referenced such a corridor in communications, never relocated the 100 Line, and never installed additional lines on these or neighboring properties. The court held this evidence might help locate/fix the existing exercised right (the corridor for the 100 Line) but cannot, under Indiana doctrine, transform a reserved future right into a fixed, limited, or extinguished right. Kwolek v. Swickard further blocked using “acquiescence” to narrow the scope of an express grant.

Put differently, the opinion draws a sharp doctrinal line between (a) fixing the location/extent of what has been built and used, and (b) judicially imposing a location limit on what the contract still authorizes but the easement holder has not yet done.

C. Impact

1. Practical consequences for landowners (including conservation transactions)

For landowners, the decision underscores that a historic “maintenance corridor” is not necessarily the full legal footprint of a pipeline company’s easement when the agreement reserves future installation or relocation rights. This may complicate:

  • conservation easement enrollment requiring predictable encumbrances (as here);
  • development planning and subdivision; and
  • financing and valuation where title risk turns on the geographic uncertainty of future uses.

2. Practical consequences for pipeline and utility operators

For operators, the opinion reinforces that broad, express pipeline easement language can preserve flexibility decades later, even if only one line has been installed and maintained along a customary corridor. The decision therefore increases the durability of legacy “one or more pipelines” grants, particularly those expressly authorizing route changes and non-parallel additional lines.

3. Doctrinal signal for Indiana easement litigation

Although the decision is a federal “Erie prediction,” it is a detailed, precedent-grounded statement of how Indiana law functions in the absence of a state supreme court case on this precise fact pattern. It is likely to be cited in:

  • disputes about whether long nonuse of certain easement privileges implies geographic limitation;
  • attempts to “quiet” or narrow utility easements through declaratory actions; and
  • cases seeking to leverage course-of-performance evidence to rewrite an express grant.

IV. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • Easement: a legal right to use someone else’s land for a specific purpose (here, pipelines).
  • Floating (blanket) easement: the easement exists, but its exact location on the property is not pinned to a specific strip in the written instrument.
  • Fixed easement: the easement’s location is defined—either by the document itself or because the law treats the location as settled (often after actual use).
  • Fixation upon exercise: when a floating easement is actually used in a particular place (e.g., a pipeline is installed along a route), that exercised use can become “fixed” so neither side can arbitrarily move it later.
  • Unexercised future rights: contractual permissions that exist on paper (e.g., add another line later), even if never used. This opinion holds those rights do not become fixed merely because they remain unused.
  • Acquiescence: a doctrine sometimes used to settle uncertain boundaries or locations through long acceptance. Indiana law (as applied here through Kwolek v. Swickard) does not use acquiescence to shrink the scope of rights plainly granted by an express easement.
  • Certification: a federal court may ask a state supreme court to answer a state-law question. The Seventh Circuit will do so mainly when it is genuinely uncertain and the answer is outcome-determinative.

V. Conclusion

Close Armstrong, LLC v. Trunkline Gas Company, LLC establishes (as an Erie-based articulation of Indiana law) a clear rule: Indiana courts fix floating easements only as to rights that have been exercised; they do not fix—by time, custom, or acquiescence—separately reserved future, movable, unexercised rights expressly granted in the instrument.

The opinion is significant for modern land-use and conservation planning because it treats legacy pipeline agreements as enduring allocations of flexibility that courts will not curtail absent a recognized Indiana doctrine such as abandonment, extinguishment, or a contractual limitation—not merely decades of restrained use.