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Court finds for couple in property dispute over transmission lines

By: Associated Press//November 20, 2015//

Court finds for couple in property dispute over transmission lines

By: Associated Press//November 20, 2015//

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A state appeals court has ruled that a transmission company does not have the right to trim and remove trees standing near one of its high-voltage lines in Waupaca, largely because the trees stand outside of the bounds of a legal easement established decades ago.

Thursday’s ruling stems from a dispute between Waukesha-based American Transmission Co. LLC and Julie and Ricardo Garza over whether ATC has the right to trim and remove trees on the Garza’s home, at 460 Woodland Circle in Waupaca. The couple’s property lies near an easement that gives utility crews access to the high-voltage line to perform repairs and maintenance.

The easement dates to 1969, well before the Garzas’ subdivision was built. At the time, the Garzas’ lot, then owned by a different couple as part of a larger parcel, was 40 feet away from the center of the transmission line. The lot was broken up in 1977 to form the Woodland Park Estates subdivision, where the Garzas would later live.

In 1995, the state’s Public Service Commission took the single-circuit line that had been standing in the easement and added a second circuit and steel poles to support conductors. ATC, the largest transmission company in the state, took over the easement in 2001.

The Garzas, who bought their lot three years later, say that ATC instructed contractors in 2011 to trim and remove the trees on the eastern side of their property, which is bordered by Highway 49 and the transmission lines. They responded by suing ATC, arguing that the company had no right to encroach on their property for those purposes.

ATC counter-sued, asking the trial court to declare that the Garzas could not prevent them from removing and trimming the trees. As support for its case, ATC cited the terms and conditions of its easement.

Dane County Circuit Court Judge Mark McGinnis sided with the company in 2014. McGinnis found that the former owners of the easement had given ATC permission to remove and trim the trees and that there was no reason to believe the agreement had ceased to be in effect.

Judges at the appellate level, though, swung the pendulum back toward the Garzas. Agreeing on Thursday with the couple’s arguments, they sent the case back to the trial court for further proceedings.

According to the appellate decision, the main matter in question was not whether ATC’s easement was valid, but whether ATC’s plans fell within the realm of what would be allowed by the 1969 easement signed by the former owners. The panel of three judges ultimately found against ATC for two reasons.

One, the easement document’s plain language provided that ATC had a right to perform maintenance of the sort proposed only to clear the way for electrical transmission lines built with wood poles. In other words, according to the appellate judges, the steel poles that were put in 1995 invalidated that easement provision.

Second, tree trimming and removal was allowed only within 40 feet of each side of where the transmission line’s center had been in 1969, not where it was after the line had been rebuilt in 1995. The appellate court found that ATC could not clear away the trees on the Garzas’ property without first getting a new easement.

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