This is an appeal from the Iowa District Court in a declaratory judgment action. Ruling on cross-motions for summary judgment, the court granted the motion in favor of defendant IES Industries, Incor *354 porated. The district court was persuaded that a public highway purposes easement included within it the right of a private company to install electric utility poles. The court also found that the plaintiff landowner did not have standing to challenge the city’s permission to the utility company enabling it to erect its lines on the plaintiffs land subject to the easement. We granted review and now reverse and remand.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings
This case involves the scope of an easement secured by the city of Keokuk from Keokuk Junction Railway Company (KJRY). In 1993, through eminent domain proceedings, Keokuk condemned a portion of KJRY’s land to build a public street, Twin Rivers Drive, above KJRY’s railroad tracks. In 1997, Keokuk allowed IES to build electric power lines within the city’s right of way on KJRY’s land. Keokuk had given a letter to IES stating that it had no objection to this use of the city’s easement. IES is a private corporation existing for profit. It is, however, considered a public utility under Iowa law. Iowa Code § 476.1 (1999); see 27A Am.Jur.2d Energy § 194 (1996) (“[A] private corporation engaged in furnishing electricity to a municipality or its inhabitants is manifestly a ‘public service’ or ‘public utility’.... ”). This fact was stipulated to by the parties.
KJRY, the present appellant, immediately brought this lawsuit for declaratory judgment claiming that the construction of power lines by IES constitutes an additional servitude for which KJRY is entitled to compensation. IES maintains that the easement held by the city encompasses this type of activity and, as such, erection of power lines falls within the scope of the original easement.
The easement obtained by the city of Keokuk from KJRY is a public purpose easement which specifically created a right of way for construction, maintenance, and other highway purposes of the portion of Twin Rivers Drive that passes over KJRY’s land. The purpose stated by the city to KJRY was as follows:
The City of Keokuk, Lee County, Iowa, desires the rights specified in the lands sought to be condemned for road right of way and/or obtaining and removing gravel and/or other suitable material for the construction, improvement and/or maintenance of the new street to be constructed, known as Twin Rivers Drive, within the City of Keokuk, Iowa.
The city also proclaimed that the condemnation would create a “permanent right of way easement for construction purposes and highway purposes.... ” In short, the easement taken by the city was a public use easement for two purposes: (1) construction and maintenance of Twin Rivers Drive and (2) highway purposes.
Appellant, KJRY would have us look only at the first purpose to determine the scope is limited to construction and removal of materials for maintenance. However, the second provision broadens the scope of the easement for highway purposes as well. It is the scope of “highway purposes” that is at issue in determining whether utility lines fall within the scope of the original easement.
Ruling on cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court sustained the motion for IES. The court based its decision on the conclusion that the “use of the electric transmission lines constitutes an incidental use or incidental easement rather than a burden which is in addition to the street right-of-way.” The district court was specifically persuaded that the power lines in question were “owned and operated by a public utility which serve[d] the public generally, and that the primary easement in this case [was] a municipality’s city street.”
Additionally, the court held that KJRY lacked standing to challenge whether Keokuk’s letter to IES gave permission to build the lines within its easement because KJRY was not a party to whatever transpired between the city and IES. KJRY *355 objects to this conclusion and claims the city never actually gave IES permission but merely stated it had “no objection.” The city’s letter made it clear to IES that Keokuk did not purport to give IES actual authority to build the lines because it was unsure if it had the right to convey such permission. Accordingly, KJRY posits that there was no legal relationship between Keokuk and IES and, therefore, KJRY does not lack standing.
In this appeal, KJRY challenges the district court’s decision granting summary judgment in favor of IES and finding that KJRY lacked standing to challenge the city’s letter. Further, KJRY asserts its own motion for summary judgment should have been granted because the erection of electric power lines resulted in an additional servitude for which KJRY should be compensated.
II. Scope and Standard of Review
This action was brought in equity. Generally, all cases in equity are reviewed de novo. Iowa R.App. P. 4. However, the same is not true if the appeal stems from the granting of summary judgment.
Baratta v. Polk County Health Servs.,
The court will affirm if the entire record including pleadings, discovery, and affidavits on file show there is no genuine issue of material fact such that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Iowa R. Civ. P. 237(c). A genuine issue of material fact is lacking when a reasonable jury or judge could conclude that no evidence entitles the nonmoving party to relief.
Baratta,
III. Issue on Appeal
“An easement is a liberty, privilege, or advantage in land without profit, existing distinct from ownership.”
Hawk v. Rice,
The notice of condemnation provided KJRY with the scope of the easement. It immediately stated: “[T]he City
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of Keokuk, Lee County, Iowa, desires certain rights for permanent right of way easements for
construction purposes and for highway purposes.”
(emphasis added). To determine the scope of the easement, this court compares the language of the easement with the proposed use. Three considerations are: (1) the physical character of past use compared to the proposed use; (2) the purpose of the easement compared to the purpose of the proposed use; and (3) the additional burden imposed on the servient land by the proposed use. Restatement (First) of Property § 478 (1944 & Supp.1993). One thing is certain, a third party cannot be given more rights under the easement than the easement conveys to the holder.
See Snyder v. Fort Madison St. Ry.,
A. The Five Possibilities
We are mindful that the national treatment of this issue is hardly uniform. The states which have addressed the present question have come to no less than five different conclusions. The possible outcomes are: (1) utility poles are within the highway easement; (2) utility poles are within the highway easement, but only if they are used to furnish power for reasons directly related to travel; (3) utility poles are within the highway easement, but only in relation to urban areas; (4) utility poles are within the highway easement if they (a) are necessary for travel purposes, and (b) the highway is in an urban area; or (5) utility poles are not within the highway easement. R.D. Hursh, Annotation,
Electric Light or Power Line in Street or Highway as Additional Servitude,
1. Erection of Power Lines Does Not Create an Additional Servitude
This view takes the position that the affected landowner cannot seek contribution for the installation of electric utility lines erected under the authority of a highway easement. This is true regardless of the location of the highway, the use of the lines, or the lack of actual ability to contemplate this type of use at the easement’s formation. Hursh,
Florida has adopted this approach.
See Nerbonne, N.V. v. Florida Power Corp.,
The reasoning underlying this position is that electric ... lines supply communications and power which were in an earlier age provided through messenger and freight wagons traveling on public highways. So long as the lines are compatible with road traffic they are viewed simply as adaptations of traditional highway uses made because of changing technology: The easement acquired by *357 the public in a highway includes every reasonable means for the transmission of intelligence, the conveyance of persons, and the transportation of commodities which the advance of civilization may render suitable for a highway.
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... Hence it has become settled law that the easement is not limited to the particular methods of use in vogue when the easement was acquired, but includes new and improved methods, the utility and general convenience of which may afterwards be discovered and developed in aid of the general purpose for which highways are designed.
Id. (citations omitted).
While this argument has merit, KJRY correctly points out that at the time of formation of the 1993 easement, electric power lines were prevalent and easily cognizable by the city of Keokuk, yet no provision was made for them in the easement. The easements at issue in Florida and the other cited cases were decades old, created in a time where utility lines were not contemplated.
See id.
at 928 (involving a 1952 easement challenged in 1991);
McCullough,
The Alaska case relied on in
Nerbonne
can similarly be distinguished from the present case because in Alaska, a statute was enacted to allow utilities to use public right-of-ways without the permission of the servient landowner.
See Fisher,
Moreover, the final holding of the Florida court rested on the fact that the easement was silent as to the installation of public utility lines.
Nerbonne,
IES relies on the holding of the Supreme Court of Utah that “an electric power or transmission line, within the boundaries of a public highway, are consistent with the permissible uses to be made of a public highway easement and do not constitute an additional burden.”
Pickett v. California Pac. Utils.,
The dissent squarely attacked this holding and worried about its expansive effect. Id. at 328 (Hall, J., dissenting).
[EJmploying concepts of the advancement of civilization, and proper and consistent uses of highways in light of human progress, seems squarely to compromise the rights of landowners .... Any private roadway dedicated for use as a public thoroughfare thus becomes a pathway for whatever use a *358 county authority, in its sole discretion, deems fit to impose, regardless of the detriment to the adjacent landowners. Little imagination is required to summon up possible uses which would be severely detrimental, if not completely destructive, of surrounding farm land; uses which, according to the majority view, could be imposed without the necessity of any compensation whatsoever.
Id. (Hall, J., dissenting). The dissent properly recognized that when an easement is taken by the city through no choice of the landowner, the city should be bound by the purposes it provides and not those later implicated by progress of civilization. Id. at 329 (Hall, J., dissenting). Further, we agree with the dissent that were we to adopt this holding, it would be hard to envision any use that could not be related to the public use somehow and, therefore, authorized by the public highway easement.
2. Erection of Utility Lines Does Not Create an Additional Servitude Where the Lines Are Directly Related to Travel Purposes
It has been stated that “the erection of electric lines in a highway or street for the purpose of lighting is included within a public highway easement, since it is a use which appertains directly ... to the right of passage and tends to preserve ... the exercise of that right.” 39 Am.Jur.2d
Highways, Streets, and Bridges
§ 297. Dating back to 1898, the lone Iowa case that addresses the present issue espouses this rationale.
See Snyder,
At issue in
Snyder
was the construction of an electricity pole for the street railway on the landowner’s property subject to a highway easement.
Id.
at 286-88,
The more recent Iowa case of
Hagenson v. United Telephone Co.
contains some pertinent dicta.
Hagenson v. United Tel. Co.,
Several other states have taken the second approach referenced earlier. Califor
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nia provides the landowner with greater authority.
Gurnsey v. Northern Cal. Power Co.,
retains his right to the soil ... and to all profit which may be derived therefrom; and a municipality may not confer upon any one the right to enter ... without the consent of the owner of the soil, when such entry is not for purposes incidental to the effective use by the public of the highway.
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... [UJnder a general power over public highways to promote safety and convenience of the public travel there-over, the authorities have a right to provide lighting of such highway at night. And for that purpose a public service corporation may be granted a franchise to erect its' poles thereon; that such a use of the highway, for the purpose of lighting it, is incidental to the full enjoyment of the public easement, imposing no additional servitude of which the abutting owner can complain.
Id. at 908-09. In dicta, the court also said power lines might be erected to feed the light posts and water lines installed to clean the highway. Id. at 909. But every mentioned use had to be related to highway use, not public use in general. See id. at 908-09.
Mississippi also limits public highway easements to activities and services used for non-commercial purposes.
Berry v. Southern Pine Elec. Power Ass’n, 222
Miss. 260,
One legal authority summarizes this position:
It has been widely held that electric light and power lines in a public street or highway, so placed for the commercial purpose of furnishing electric current to private individuals or concerns, constitute an additional burden or easement for which the owner of the abutting property, who also owns the fee in the street or highway, is entitled to compensation. Even if the poles and wires are reasonably necessary and proper for the furnishing of lights for the way, their further use for the furnishing of electricity to private parties is unauthorized, and entitles the owner of the fee in the highway to demand compensation or to enjoin the unlawful use, but not to require removal of the line.
26 Am.Jur.2d Eminent Domain § 228, at 652 (1996).
3. Erection of Utility Lines Does Not Create an Additional Servitude Where the Highway Is in an Urban Area
This distinction is all but extinct in many states that previously espoused it because the line between urban and rural is often hard to determine. Nonetheless, this rule recognizes: “[Although electric power lines erected in urban streets impose no additional servitude for which the owners of the fee are entitled to compensation, an additional servitude is imposed where such lines are erected in rural highways.” Id. § 227, at 651.
Pennsylvania is one of the few states to adopt this rationale. See Anderson v. Philadelphia Elec. Co., 2 Pa. D. & C.2d 709, 710-14 (Ct. C.P. Montgomery County 1954). The court held that urban conveniences give a municipality additional control over its streets that is not practical or *360 necessary in a rural setting. Id. at 712-14. The usefulness of this rationale under our facts is extremely limited because Keokuk is an urban city and the area in question is a city street. Also, the distinction between urban and rural areas made in this rationale is of doubtful merit.
4. Erection of Utility Lines Does Not Create an Additional Servitude Where the Lines for Are for Travel Purposes and Are in an Urban Area
Maryland has addressed this rationale and decided that rural power lines erected for private, nontravel purposes constitute an additional servitude on a highway easement.
Potomac Edison Co. v. Routzahn,
5. Erection of Utility Lines Constitutes an Additional Servitude for Which the Landowner Must Be Compensated
KJRY relies heavily on
Thompson v. City of Osage
to support its argument that “a condemner takes only the estate or interest in the property condemned that is necessary for the purpose of condemnation.”
Thompson v. City of Osage,
KJRY correctly argues that the installation of the power lines creates an actual burden on the land. IES has placed its electricity poles on land still retained by KJRY in fee simple. When the servient land is burdened by an easement, the ser-vient landowner does not surrender a fee simple. All that is relinquished is so much of the land as is necessary to accomplish the purposes of the easement. Contrary to IES’s contention, the landowner would not be getting paid twice for the same land (once by the city and once by the utility) if the utility was forced to pay for its own right-of-way. This is because the land remains in the control of the servient landowner to be used for other uses as long as these uses do not interfere with the purposes of the easement.
The increased risk of harm to KJRY’s land also creates an additional burden because overhead power lines create a danger to KJRY’s railroad tracks below and its operations in that area in general that was not contemplated at the time of the original easement. In this regard, the West Virginia Supreme Court recognized: “It is true that high voltage of electricity is a dangerous agency wherever it may be found.”
Karcher v. Wheeling Elec. Co.,
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Similar persuasive authority comes from the various states that have adopted the fifth possible rationale.
See, e.g., Cathey v. Arkansas Power & Light Co.,
Arkansas has decisively found that although the state may provide a utility company the right to construct its poles on a highway easement, the owner in fee must still be compensated for it.
Cathey,
[T]he erection of a telephone line upon the public highway along lands of adjoining owners, in which the public only has an easement for use as a highway, would not prevent the owner of the land from collecting damages for the new servitude to which his land is subjected; such use not having been in contemplation when the easement was taken or granted.
Biddle,
Louisiana has come to a similar conclusion.
See Louisiana Power & Light Co. v. Dileo,
New York has also taken an exclusive stance toward highway easements.
See Heyert,
In North Carolina it has been held that trees within a public easement may not be removed to make room for utility poles without first compensating the servient landowner.
Brown v. Asheville Elec. Light Co.,
A public easement creates a contract between the servient landowner and the city.
Jordan v. Iowa Dep’t of Transp.,
Illinois follows this strict interpretation of the easement rule.
See id.
The scope of the easement is limited to only those things specifically named.
See id.
Because the city took an easement from the landowner for gas, electric, and telephone services, the easement was limited only to that.
Id.
The easement could not be expanded to include cable lines.
Id.
We believe this is a sounder conclusion than that adopted by the court in Florida.
Compare id.
(holding the easement language is controlling),
with Nerbonne,
While it is true that the “holder of the easement possesses all rights necessary to the reasonable and proper enjoyment of the easement,” the installation of utilities must be related to the road right-of-way granted in the easement.
Hunter v. Keys,
We agree with the sound arguments made by the courts adopting the fifth rationale. We conclude that power lines and utility poles are not included within the scope of the general public highway easement. Specifically, if the city had wanted its easement to include utilities, it could have stated as much. Allowing a utility company that operates for a profit to place its poles on the servient land without having to pay for this right is manifestly unfair to the servient landowner whose easement did not include utilities within its purview. To hold otherwise would allow the utility company to get something for nothing. The sole existence of a public easement should not enable a company for profit to obtain free use.
B. Standing to Challenge the City’s Agreement with IES
Because we determine that summary judgment should have been granted in favor of KJRY it is unnecessary to discuss standing to challenge whether IES had actual permission to build its electric poles. Under our holding today, regardless of permission, IES could not erect its utility poles under the authority of the general highway easement without providing compensation to KJRY. This decision does not require IES to remove its poles, rather it charges IES for payment to KJRY for their installation.
C. Conclusion
We hold that the easement obtained by the city of Keokuk from KJRY by eminent domain proceedings does not provide any legal basis for the erection of electric power lines by IES without its paying just compensation to KJRY. The district court erred in granting summary judgment to *363 IES and in overruling KJRY’s motion for summary judgment on this issue.
The ease is reversed and remanded for entry of judgment in favor of KJRY on this issue and for further relief as is consistent with this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.