Dictionary definitions

Breen v Clough [2024] NSWCA 316

Courts often caution against reliance on dictionaries to resolve meaning.  B and C were neighbours on steep land above a river accessed by an inclinator5.  An ‘easement for services’ over C’s land permitted services ‘to or from each lot benefited’6.  B installed a ‘closed system’ CCTV camera on C’s land to manage the inclinator and for security.  C wanted it gone.

Relying on dictionary definitions, the trial judge held that ‘services’ required something coming from a public place through C’s land to benefit B’s land7.  Ward P disagreed.  Nothing in the easement itself required the source of the service to be external.  Provision of images was clearly a service ‘to’ B’s land.

This principle is from Episode 117 of interpretation NOW!

Footnotes:

5 Ward P said there was a ‘degree of hostility or animosity between them’.

6 Schedule 8 to Part 11 of the Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW).

7 The camera was otherwise an impermissible fixture amounting to trespass.