Appellants tell court trial judge exceeded parties’ 1995 deal by imposing recorded view easement

Appellants’ lawyer Michael Gillette told the appellate panel that a May 1995 written agreement between Bradford and Laura Weeks and their neighbors, Paul and Virginia Keck, did not authorize the trial court to impose a recorded view easement or assign ongoing maintenance costs.

"Our contract law depends on a principle that a deal is a deal," Gillette said, summarizing the parties’ exchange: the Weeks would extinguish an access easement and the Kecks would grant a view easement that gives the Weeks a view of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. Gillette argued the trial court nevertheless "wrote into" the remedy a requirement that the Weeks pay the cost of enforcement even though the 1995 writing does not show any intent to allocate maintenance costs.

Respondent counsel Matthew Walker urged the panel to reverse on a different ground: he said the 1995 agreement is too nonspecific to create an easement that transfers property rights. "The court created an entirely separate agreement for two people that they themselves did not agree to," Walker said, arguing the remedy imposed in the judgment went beyond enforcing a private contract and instead imposed a binding land encumbrance.

The judges focused on several technical points. One judge asked whether a relatively vague agreement can still be enforced and whether allocation of maintenance costs should be decided case‑by‑case depending on the facts of a particular breach. Gillette acknowledged courts sometimes fill gaps with extrinsic evidence but said the trial court erred by imposing a recorded easement in the specific form the judge had written.

The bench also raised the statute of frauds and property‑identification issues. A judge questioned whether a contract that creates or obligates the parties to enter an easement must comply with the statute of frauds. Gillette cited state precedent saying that, in the context of easements, the statute requires sufficient specification of the affected property but does not always demand a formal legal description.

Counsel and the panel discussed practical impediments to a court‑fashioned view easement: Walker noted the agreement does not say who will pay to maintain views across trees, and he observed that portions of the Keck property include wetlands that may be protected and not subject to routine trimming or other view‑creating work without permits.

Both sides acknowledged that if this court treats the 1995 writing as an enforceable contract, extrinsic evidence at trial could supply missing terms in some circumstances (for example, testimony that trees were to be kept at an agreed height). But Walker emphasized that imposing a recorded easement that runs with the land is a materially different step because it transfers property rights and may reduce the burdened owner’s property value.

Gillette told the panel the Weeks are not appealing a pure finding that the 1995 agreement was not itself an easement; rather, the appeal challenges the remedy the trial court imposed after construing the contract. He asked the appellate court either to reverse the portion of the judgment that required the Kecks’ property to be encumbered in the form the trial judge prescribed or to remand for application of the correct equitable factors on the particular facts.

The argument concluded after further bench questioning; the court took the matter under advisement. No decision was announced at the hearing.