Daily Development for Tuesday October 10, 2000

By: Patrick A. Randolph, Jr.
Professor of Law
UMKC School of Law
Of Counsel: Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin
Kansas City, Missouri
randolphp@umkc.edu

 

EASEMENTS; PRESCRIPTION; REQUIREMENT OF HOSTILITY; PERMISSION: Use of a claimed easement area shared with owner is hostile, and not with permission, when the adverse user believes, albeit incorrectly, that it has a legal right to conduct such use.

Plymouth Canton Community Crier Inc. v. Prose, 2000 WL 1458810 (Mich.App.)

There was an express easement granting the dominant owner the right to vehicular and pedestrian travel "in common with the owner of the remainder of [the servient estate], excluding use by either owner for parking or other use."

In fact, it was apparently the intent of the parties to create an easement that permitted loading and unloading of trucks from entrances served by the easement area to both parties' buildings, and the parties both continued such use for the prescriptive period, after which the servient property passed into the hands of another and a dispute arose.

The trial court excluded evidence of the intent of the parties that loading and unloading was intended as party of the easement, noting that the express easement was clear and unequivocal and that the present owners were not parties to the negotiations for the easement.

It concluded, however, that an easement by prescription had arisen.

On appeal: Held: Affirmed.

The appeals court commented that the trial court had been correct in excluding evidence of the negotiations, and therefore in ruling that there was no express easement. But it affirmed the trial court's finding that a prescriptive easement had been created.

The owner's strongest argument against the finding of a prescriptive easement was its claim that the loading and unloading had been a permissive use. The court acknowledged that if the only evidence was that the plaintiff used the easement area for loading and unloading without the true owner's permission, and shared the area with the true owner's loading and unloading activities, the court might have concluded that the use was not hostile, but in fact permissive.

Here, however, the court had the additional evidence that the user believed, albeit mistakenly, that the easement granted it the authority to conduct such activity, and as a consequence the use clearly was not based upon permission, but on a belief in title.

Comment: Note the focus on the mental state of the adverse user. The court doesn't tell us whether any of the prescriptive period ran during the time that the servient estate was held by a successor.

 From the standpoint of the successor owner of the property, the use might well have been permissive, since it had not been a party to the original negotiations.

It is hard to argue with the result, here, since both sides were equally violating the "no parking" constraint placed upon both of them, and consequently the right of loading and unloading seemed clearly recognized. But if only one user is involved, we should note that this case stands for authority that the mental state of the adverse user will confirm a hostile intent, even when not communicated to the other side.

The editor concurs in this view of prescriptive rights, as the editor favors the view that modern adverse possession and prescriptive use cases ought usually to be based upon the "building of a claim of right" by the behavior of the adverse user, and not upon the negligence of the true owner in failing to defend.

 EASEMENTS; PRESCRIPTION; REQUIREMENT OF EXCLUSIVENESS:  Although test for easements by prescription may include requirement of "exclusive" use, in fact such requirement means only that the right of the claimant to continue the use does not depend upon a like right in others.

Plymouth Canton Community Crier Inc. v. Prose, 2000 WL 1458810 (Mich.App.)

The requirement of "exclusivity" appears frequently in the traditional statement of the test for prescriptive use, and often creates some confusion when the claimed prescriptive use is shared with others. The Michigan statement of the meaning of the requirement strikes the editor as clear and useful.

Readers are urged to respond, comment, and argue with the daily development or the editor's comments about it.

Items in the Daily Development section generally are extracted from the Quarterly Report on Developments in Real Estate Law, published by the ABA Section on Real Property, Probate & Trust Law. Subscriptions to the Quarterly Report are available to Section members only. The cost is nominal. For the last six years, these Reports have been collated, updated, indexed and bound into an Annual Survey of Developments in Real Estate Law, volumes 1‑6, published by the ABA Press. The Annual Survey volumes are available for sale to the public. For the Report or the Survey, contact Maria Tabor at the ABA. (312) 988 5590 or mtabor@staff.abanet.org

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