Mutual-Mistake Reformation of a “Shared Drive” Easement: Courts May Recast a Misdescribed Right-of-Way to Match Intent and Practical Use

Nonprecedential posture: The Vermont Supreme Court issued this decision as an Entry Order by a three-justice panel, and the opinion itself notes that such decisions “are not to be considered as precedent before any tribunal.” The analysis below therefore addresses its reasoning and likely persuasive significance rather than binding effect.

1. Introduction

Parties and dispute. Misty McCartney (plaintiff) and neighboring owners David Burns and Melissa Haberman (defendants) litigated a long-running conflict over a gravel driveway located largely on plaintiff’s land but used historically by both properties. The case also involved escalating interpersonal conflict—intentional obstruction, repeated incursions, and conduct the trial court found harassing—giving rise to trespass, nuisance, damages, and injunctive relief.

Core legal issues. On appeal, the central questions were:

  • Whether the trial court erred in finding the driveway was “shared” based on pleadings and trial conduct;
  • Whether the court properly reformed a deed to implement the parties’ true intent regarding a reciprocal right-of-way—especially where the deed’s written description was impossible or inconsistent with physical realities; and
  • Whether the original 1905 “right of way” was appurtenant (running with the land) or merely personal to the grantor.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed the judgment. It held that the trial court’s decision was fact-driven and entitled to deference after a bench trial, and that credible evidence supported:

  • the conclusion that the parties treated the driveway as a shared drive (while disputing the scope and purpose of the underlying easement);
  • the determination that the 1905 reserved “right of way” was an appurtenant easement serving the retained land (not a personal right terminating upon conveyance);
  • the reformation of the 1974 deed’s right-of-way description due to mutual mistake, to reflect a truly shared right-of-way passing across both properties; and
  • the trial court’s nuisance/trespass findings and equitable relief (including a permanent injunction) were not undermined by the appellate arguments presented.

3. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

1) Reformation and mutual mistake

  • Van Berkom v. Cordonnier, 2011 ND 239, ¶ 11, 807 N.W.2d 802: The Court invoked this out-of-state authority for a clear statement of reformation’s function—an equitable remedy that “rewrite[s] a contract to accurately reflect the parties’ intended agreement.” It reinforced that reformation is not a “gotcha” exercise in literalism; it is designed to correct the written expression when it diverges from the actual agreement.
  • Bourne v. Lajoie, 149 Vt. 45, 50 (1987) and Lajoie, 149 Vt. at 49: These Vermont cases supply the controlling standard: reformation is appropriate where, through a mistake common to both parties, the instrument fails to express the real agreement. Critically, the Court reiterated the heightened proof requirement—“beyond reasonable doubt”—that there was a valid prior agreement providing a “standard” to which the deed can be reformed.
  • 28 Williston on Contracts 70:209 and 70:135 (4th ed.): Williston was cited to anchor two points: (i) reformation targets “mistake as to expression,” and (ii) the parol evidence rule generally does not bar extrinsic proof because the claim is that the writing is not the true agreement.
  • Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 155 (1981): The Court used § 155 to emphasize that once a court is convinced the writing fails to reflect actual agreement, the writing loses its usual evidentiary weight, and the inquiry properly shifts to ascertaining the real agreement from the full factual context.

2) Appellate deference after bench trial

  • Lofts Essex, LLC v. Strategis Floor & Décor Inc., 2019 VT 82, ¶ 17, 211 Vt. 204: This case framed the standard of review: findings stand unless clearly erroneous viewed favorably to the prevailing party; contradiction by substantial evidence is not enough; reversal requires a showing of no credible supporting evidence. This deference was dispositive because defendants’ challenge sought to recast factual determinations (intent, historical use, credibility) as legal errors.

3) Appurtenant vs. personal easements

  • Rowe v. Lavanway, 2006 VT 47, ¶ 12, 180 Vt. 505 (mem.): The Court relied on the principle that an interpretation favoring an appurtenant easement is preferred—i.e., serving land rather than a person.
  • Barrett v. Kunz, 158 Vt. 15, 18 (1992): Barrett supplied the doctrinal contrast: appurtenant easements pass with the dominant land; “personal easements, or easements in gross,” generally benefit only the holder, lack a dominant tenement, and typically expire upon conveyance unless reserved.
  • Sabins v. McAllister, 116 Vt. 302, 305 (1950), overruled, in part, on other grounds by Lague, Inc. v. Royea, 152 Vt. 499, 502-03 (1989): The Court used Sabins for the inference that a reserved right-of-way is appurtenant when there is no indication the grantor sought a personal benefit distinct from ownership of the retained parcel. Lague was noted only to clarify partial overruling on other grounds, preserving the relevance of the cited proposition.

B. Legal Reasoning

1) “Shared drive” as a litigation fact, not a technical concession

Defendants attacked the finding that they admitted a “shared” drive in pleadings, arguing the court misconstrued their answer. The Supreme Court treated this argument as largely semantic: defendants did refer to a “shared common driveway,” and the trial court simultaneously recognized that the real dispute was the scope and purpose of the underlying right-of-way. In other words, the trial court did not treat “shared” as resolving every boundary question; it treated it as confirming that each side claimed some rights in the driveway area.

2) The 1905 reservation created an appurtenant right-of-way

The defendants’ key legal move was to characterize the 1905 “right of way” reservation—originally described as for “removing manure” from the barn/shed—as personal to Mansfield and therefore extinguished. The Supreme Court rejected this as a matter of law and affirmed the trial court’s appraisal of the historical evidence:

  • the reservation was tied to use of structures serving the retained land, supporting an inference that it “served a parcel of land”;
  • subsequent conveyancing (a 1920 deed) expressly reserved the same right-of-way, supporting continuity rather than personal termination; and
  • there was no evidence of abandonment.

This is a practical application of Vermont’s preference for construing easements as appurtenant absent clear indicia of a personal, time-limited right.

3) Reformation: once mutual mistake is found, intent—not the mistaken “starting point”—controls

The most significant doctrinal contribution of the Entry Order lies in how it frames the consequence of a mutual-mistake finding in an easement description. The 1974 deed described a 20-foot right-of-way measured from the “northerly edge” of Parcel One—yet the trial court found that this description was physically and objectively incompatible with the actual boundary line and structure locations (it would effectively intrude into a house).

The Supreme Court endorsed the trial court’s approach:

  • Reformation is fact-intensive. The Court stressed that reformation cases “must be determined upon [their] own particular facts and circumstances.”
  • Parol/extrinsic evidence is admissible. Consistent with Williston and the Restatement, the trial court could consider subsequent conduct (how owners actually used and understood the driveway) to identify the “true transaction.”
  • Remedy must implement intent. Once the court found mutual mistake, it was not bound to preserve the deed’s erroneous measuring instruction. The duty was to implement the intended shared arrangement, which the court found meant a right-of-way crossing both properties rather than lying exclusively on plaintiff’s land.

In concrete terms, the trial court reformed the instrument to create a 15-foot right-of-way “passing equally across the two properties,” with an 8-foot gravel drive within it—balancing access/maintenance needs against interference with parking and residential use. The Supreme Court treated this as a permissible, evidence-supported implementation of intent rather than an impermissible judicial redesign.

4) Standard of review did real work

The opinion repeatedly characterizes defendants’ challenges as attempts to repackage disagreements with factual findings as legal error. Citing Lofts Essex, the Court emphasized that credibility determinations and inferences from physical facts and historical usage belong primarily to the trial court. Because credible evidence supported the findings about mistake, intent, and historical practice, the appellate court affirmed.

C. Impact

Although nonprecedential, the Entry Order is likely to be cited for its reasoning in three recurring property-law contexts:

  • Impossible or implausible easement descriptions. Where a deed description cannot sensibly fit the landscape (e.g., intruding into a structure), courts may treat that mismatch as strong evidence of mutual mistake and proceed to reform to a workable configuration matching intent.
  • “Shared driveway” disputes. The decision illustrates that courts may rely on pleadings, common usage labels, and course-of-performance evidence to frame the controversy as one about scope and purpose, not existence, of shared rights.
  • Appurtenant presumption for reserved rights-of-way. The Court reaffirmed that, absent clear indications of a personal right, reserved access rights tied to the use of retained land are naturally construed as running with the land.

Practically, the reasoning encourages careful drafting (and surveying) of right-of-way descriptions and highlights litigation risk when parties rely on inherited, informally located “drives” without reconciling record descriptions to physical conditions.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • Appurtenant easement: A right (like a driveway) that benefits a specific parcel of land (the “dominant” parcel) and automatically passes to future owners when that land is sold.
  • Easement in gross (personal easement): A right benefiting a person or company rather than a parcel; it usually does not transfer automatically with land ownership unless the instrument so provides.
  • Mutual mistake: Both sides share the same mistaken belief when putting an agreement into writing—here, being wrong about the boundary/measurements such that the written description did not reflect what they meant.
  • Reformation: An equitable remedy where a court edits the written instrument so it says what the parties actually agreed to, rather than what was mistakenly written.
  • Parol evidence rule (and why it didn’t block proof here): Usually limits using outside evidence to contradict a final written agreement; but in reformation, the claim is that the writing is not the true agreement, so extrinsic evidence is commonly allowed to show the real intent.
  • “Clearly erroneous” review: On appeal after a bench trial, factual findings stand if supported by any credible evidence, even if other evidence points the other way.

5. Conclusion

McCartney v. Burns and Haberman affirms a trial court’s power—upon proof “beyond reasonable doubt” of mutual mistake—to reform a misdescribed right-of-way so that it matches the parties’ intended, practical “shared drive,” even when doing so changes where the easement lies on the ground (including allocating it across both properties). The Court also reinforced Vermont’s preference for construing reserved rights-of-way as appurtenant when they serve the retained land, and it underscored the decisive role of deferential appellate review in fact-intensive property disputes. In the broader context of neighbor conflicts, the decision also illustrates how property doctrines (easements, reformation) can interact with tort remedies (trespass, nuisance) and equitable tools (injunctions) to restore workable coexistence.