Orange & Rockland Utilities, Inc. v. Philwold Estates, Inc.
Court of Appeals of New York
418 N.E.2d 1310 (1981)
A 1923 deed restricted a parcel's use solely to hydroelectric plant operations while reserving a hunting and fishing easement for the retained land, but after New York City condemned all of the utility's riparian rights in 1940, the utility could no longer make any use of the restricted purpose, yet still bore taxes and liability for the easement, and the successor owner of the dominant estate offered no evidence the covenant provided substantial benefit beyond potentially increasing his land's value.
Whether, to determine if a restrictive covenant should be cancelled under the doctrine of relative hardship, a court may extinguish the covenant if the restriction confers no actual and substantial benefit to the covenantee while rendering the burdened land valueless.