Summary
The Connecticut Supreme Court considered whether a deeded right-of-way had been extinguished by adverse use or abandonment and whether the defendants had acquired an additional prescriptive easement. The court held that the plaintiff's use was insufficiently adverse to extinguish the deeded easement and that the predecessors' nonuse did not establish abandonment. It affirmed in part and reversed in part the trial court's judgment.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the plaintiff's use of the servient property, including a stone wall, vegetation, a tree, a bench, and a shed, extinguished the defendants' deeded right-of-way through adverse use.
- Whether the defendants' predecessors abandoned the deeded right-of-way through sixteen years of nonuse and occasional use of an alternate route.
- Whether the trial court clearly erred in finding that the defendants' predecessors' driveway and railroad ties did not encroach on the plaintiff's property so as to establish a prescriptive easement.
- Whether the trial court applied an improper clear-and-positive-proof burden rather than the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard to the defendants' prescriptive-easement claim.
Holdings
- A servient owner extinguishes a deeded easement by prescription only through adverse, notorious, exclusive, and hostile acts that are distinctly adverse to the existence of the easement and continue for the fifteen-year prescriptive period; ordinary use of the servient land, vegetation, or nonactionable obstructions generally is insufficient. The trial court's findings did not legally and logically support extinguishment.
- Mere nonuse of a deeded easement, however long continued, does not establish abandonment. Abandonment requires additional conduct by the dominant owner that unequivocally and decisively manifests an intent to relinquish the easement or is inconsistent with its continued existence. The defendants' predecessors did not abandon the right-of-way.
- The trial court did not clearly err in finding that the defendants failed to prove that the predecessors' railroad ties and driveway encroached on the plaintiff's property; therefore, the defendants failed to establish the claimed prescriptive easement.
- A prescriptive-easement claim is assessed under the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard, not the clear-and-positive-proof standard applicable to adverse possession. The record did not establish that the trial court applied the heightened standard, and the defendants' failure to seek an articulation precluded the requested inference.
Key quotations
“Accordingly, the acts of a servient owner necessary to extinguish an easement must be distinctly adverse to the existence of the easement and not merely acts showing dominion over the servient estate.” (283 Conn. at 524)
“Mere nonuser of an easement created by deed, however long continued, is insufficient to establish abandonment.” (283 Conn. at 532)
“a right-of-way is not extinguished by the habitual use by its owner of another way, equally convenient, unless there has been an intentional abandonment of the former way.” (283 Conn. at 533)
“Claims of adverse possession are evaluated under the heightened standard of clear and positive proof, whereas claims of prescriptive easements are assessed under the preponderance of the evidence standard.” (283 Conn. at 542)
Factual background
The parties owned adjoining residential properties in Westbrook, Connecticut. The defendants' property was benefited, and the plaintiff's property was burdened, by a deeded five-foot right-of-way connecting the defendants' property to Pent Road, but the defendants and their predecessors had not used the way for many years. The plaintiff maintained vegetation and other objects in or near the right-of-way and later erected a boundary fence, while the defendants claimed both that the deeded way remained valid and that they had acquired an additional prescriptive easement along the common boundary based on their predecessors' driveway.
Procedural history
The plaintiff filed an action under General Statutes § 47-31 to quiet title and sought to enjoin the defendants from entering and preparing a deeded right-of-way. The defendants denied extinguishment, asserted defenses, and counterclaimed for injunctive relief and a prescriptive easement over another portion of the plaintiff's property. After a preliminary injunction hearing, the case was tried to the court, which ruled for the plaintiff on extinguishment and against the defendants on their prescriptive-easement claim. The Supreme Court reversed the judgment concerning the deeded right-of-way and affirmed the judgment rejecting the defendants' prescriptive-easement claims.
Remand instructions
The judgment was reversed with respect to the deeded right-of-way, and the case was remanded to the trial court for further proceedings according to law. The judgment was affirmed in all other respects.