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.
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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.