Bishop Eddie Long Ministries Inc. v. Dillard

In these related cases involving ongoing disputes about easements to use a lake, Bishop Eddie Long Ministries, Inc., and Richard and Susan Adle sued G. Douglas Dillard, John Cowart, Robert J. Rutland, and Hunt Valley, Inc., for nuisance and trespass arising out of the defendants’ decisions to no longer maintain a dam and to drain a lake on which plaintiffs owned lakefront property. Defendants counterclaimed for trespass, conversion, and nuisance arising out of plaintiffs’ harvesting of defendants’ trees and efforts to refill the lake by plugging up the dam’s drainage pipe. A jury awarded damages to both sides, including attorney fees and punitive damages. Both sides have appealed. For the reasons which follow, we affirm in both cases. Construed in favor of the verdict, the evidence shows that in August 1977, Robert J. Rutland purchased 216 acres in DeKalb County, which included a large lake in the middle of the property impounded by an earthen dam. That same day, Rutland sold a 120-acre parcel of the property to a joint venture called Hooker/Barnes, which parcel included the lower half of the lake and the entire dam. To secure Hooker/Barnes’s debt to Rutland arising out of the sale, Hooker/Barnes gave Rutland a security deed on the 120-acre parcel. Hooker/Barnes and Rutland also entered into a “Reciprocal Easement Agreement” that same day regarding the maintenance of the lake, in which agreement the parties granted each other and their successors in title easement rights over the whole lake and agreed to share the costs of maintaining the lake. Duly recorded in the DeKalb County real estate records, this agreement provided that it terminated upon the satisfaction of the security deed from Hooker/Barnes to Rutland.

In June 1983, Rutland conveyed 49 acres of the property he had retained to Monteagle, Inc., which acreage included most of the upper half of the lake and surrounding property. Monteagle in turn subdivided the forty-nine-acre parcel and in March 1984 sold a five-acre plot to Richard and Susan Adle. The deed incorporated by reference a recorded plat, which plat showed the lake and portrayed that the five-acre plot not only fronted the lake but also included some property underlying the lake. The Adles built a home with a view of the lake, which they enjoyed for some years.