LITTLE RIVER SOIL FARM,
Plaintiff,
v
.
Wake County
No. 00 CVS 13543
DANNY L. HILL AND WIFE,
MARJORIE P. HILL; DALLAS
J. SASSER, TRUSTEE; GEORGE
N. HAMRICK, TRUSTEE; DANNY
R. GORDON; VICKY G. MARTIN;
RICHARD O. GAMBLE, TRUSTEE;
G. HENRY TEMPLE, TRUSTEE;
RIVEREDGE ACRES, INC., AKA RIVER
EDGE ACRES; FERD L. DAVIS,
TRUSTEE, AND ERDYNE H. YATES,
Defendants.
J. Michael Weeks, for plaintiff-appellee.
Smith, Debnam, Narron, Wyche, Saintsing & Myers, LLP, by W.
Thurston Debnam and R.L. Pressley, for defendant-appellants.
MARTIN, Chief Judge.
Defendants Vicky Gordon Martin and Danny R. Gordon appeal from
a judgment granting plaintiff Little River Soil Farm an easement
across their real property.
Plaintiff filed a declaratory judgment action seeking
definition of the scope and location of an access easement it held
across four parcels of real property. After hearing evidence, the
trial court entered judgment finding facts and concluding plaintiffdid have an access easement by prescription. The judgment
determined that the easement was generally located where
plaintiff's evidence placed it, and that the right of way was
approximately 30 feet wide. The judgment continued: The Court
appoints Williams-Pearce, Professional Land Surveyors, to survey
the boundaries of the Access Easement as located and defined by
this Judgment and to submit a map of the survey, in such form as
may be filed for recordation in the Wake County Register of Deeds
Office, for review and approval of this Court. Defendants Martin
and Gordon appealed, while the other landowners whose property is
encumbered by this easement have not appealed or otherwise
contested the trial court's order in this matter.
The dispositive issue in this appeal is whether defendants'
appeal from the judgment was premature. Where, as here, an order
entered by the trial court does not dispose of the entire
controversy between all parties, it is interlocutory. Hudson-Cole
Dev. Corp. v. Beemer, 132 N.C. App. 341, 344, 511 S.E.2d 309, 311
(1999)(citation omitted). The trial court did not certify this
judgment as being immediately appealable according to Rule 54(b),
see N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1A-1, Rule 54(b), nor did defendants argue
that the judgment affected any of their substantial rights. The
appellant bears the burden of demonstrating that an interlocutory
order is immediately appealable. See Jeffreys v. Raleigh Oaks
Joint Venture, 115 N.C. App. 377, 444 S.E.2d 252 (1994). The
judgment here determined only the existence and the size of the
easement at issue, but left the location of the easement upon theground to be decided at a later time. Because the judgment does
not dispose of the entire controversy, and appellants have failed
to state grounds justifying immediate appellate review of this
interlocutory order, the appeal is dismissed.
Appeal dismissed.
Judges TIMMONS-GOODSON and HUNTER concur.
Report per Rule 30(e).
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