Title: Gentili v. Town of Sturbridge
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SJC-12810
State: Massachusetts
Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court
Date: February 24, 2020

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SJC-12810 
 
FULVIO JOSEPH GENTILI, trustee,1 and another2  vs.  TOWN OF 
STURBRIDGE. 
 
 
February 24, 2020. 
 
 
Easement.  Adverse Possession and Prescription.  Real Property, 
Easement. 
 
 
 
In 2015, the plaintiffs, Fulvio Joseph Gentili and Gina 
Madore, trustees of the Renato Gentili Trust, commenced an 
action in the Land Court against the town of Sturbridge (town) 
and Sturbridge DHC, LLC (Sturbridge DHC), seeking various 
declarations concerning the town's and Sturbridge DHC's right to 
discharge water onto trust property (property).3  After a trial, 
a judge declared that the town had obtained a prescriptive 
easement to discharge storm water through a town culvert onto 
and across the property.  The trust did not appeal from that 
decision.  Instead, it commenced this action in the Superior 
Court against the town only, seeking compensation pursuant to 
G. L. c. 79, §§ 7, 10, 12, and 14, for what it avers was a 
taking, by the town, of the property.  The trust does not 
contest the existence of the prescriptive easement; rather, it 
argues that the easement amounts to a taking for which it is 
                                                 
 
1 Of the Renato Gentili Trust. 
 
 
2 Gina Madore, as trustee of the Renato Gentili Trust. 
 
 
3 Sturbridge DHC is a private land owner and an abutter to 
the trust's property. 
 
2 
 
 
entitled to compensation.4  After a hearing on the parties' cross 
motions for summary judgment, a judge allowed the town's motion 
and denied the trust's motion.  The trust appeals, and we 
transferred the appeal to this court on our own initiative. 
 
 
Background.  Although the existence of the prescriptive 
easement is not at issue, we briefly set forth the facts 
underlying the Land Court's decision.  In 1987, the town 
authorized the reconstruction of Hall Road, which runs along one 
side of the property.  The reconstruction work included 
replacing an old culvert with a new culvert (a corrugated metal 
culvert that is twenty-four inches in diameter).  The new 
culvert extended into the property.  In 1997, the trust inquired 
of the town's conservation commission (commission) whether the 
Wetlands Protection Act (act) applied to the property.  The 
commission indicated that the act did not apply, but 
subsequently, when a second inquiry was made in 2003, the 
commission indicated that there were wetlands on the property.  
The trust thereafter attempted to sell the property, without 
success.  Then, in 2015, the trust commenced the Land Court 
action, seeking various declarations regarding the town's 
rights, or lack thereof, to discharge water onto the property.  
On the basis that the town had been discharging storm water onto 
the property through the new culvert since the culvert's 
construction in 1987, and because the town had met the other 
requirements for acquiring a prescriptive easement as well, the 
judge declared the existence of the easement and dismissed the 
trust's complaint. 
 
 
Discussion.  As noted, the trust did not appeal from the 
Land Court judgment declaring the town's prescriptive easement.  
Rather, the trust took a different tack -- arguing, in its 
complaint in the Superior Court, that the easement amounts to a 
taking for which the trust is entitled to compensation from the 
town.  The trust does not argue, nor could it reasonably do so, 
that the easement amounts to an order of taking pursuant to 
G. L. c. 79, § 1, which provides for "[t]he taking of real 
estate or of any interest therein by right of eminent domain" 
with an actual "order of taking."  There has clearly been no 
such order here.  Rather, in the trust's view, the easement 
amounts to a taking pursuant to G. L. c. 79, § 10.5  The town, by 
                                                 
 
4 The trust also sought the return of certain taxes that it 
had paid pursuant to G. L. c. 79, § 35A. 
 
 
5 General Laws c. 79, § 10, provides in relevant part: 
3 
 
 
discharging storm water onto the property, has, the argument 
goes, "taken" the property for public use and the trust has 
suffered a compensable injury as a result.  See Blair v. 
Department of Conservation & Recreation, 457 Mass. 634, 639 
(2010) ("A physical or per se taking . . . requires a permanent 
physical intrusion on . . . an interest in the property by the 
government for public use"). 
 
 
The problem with the trust's argument is that the theories 
and laws of prescriptive easements and takings do not interact 
in the way that the trust suggests.  The town acquired the 
easement, pursuant to statute, through its "use . . . continued 
uninterruptedly for twenty years."  G. L. c. 187, § 2.  The 
trust, concomitantly, failed during that time to assert any 
rights against the town either to put a stop to the discharge of 
water onto the property or to obtain compensation for it as a 
taking.6  It is this failure, rather than any action by the town, 
that led to the trust's loss of property rights.  See Texaco, 
Inc. v. Short, 454 U.S. 516, 530 (1982) ("It is the owner's 
failure to make any use of the property -- and not the action of 
the State -- that causes the lapse of the property right; there 
is no 'taking' that requires compensation").  Although the Court 
in the Texaco case was considering a State statute that provided 
for the extinction of certain rights (in mineral interests) when 
not exercised for twenty years, see id. at 518, rather than, as 
                                                 
 
"When the real estate of any person has been taken for the 
public use or has been damaged by the . . . operation . . .  
of a public improvement or has been entered for a public 
purpose, but such taking, entry or damage was not effected 
by or in accordance with a formal vote or order of the 
board of officers of a body politic or corporate duly 
authorized by law, or when the personal property of any 
person has been . . . used for a public purpose, and by 
such . . . use he has suffered an injury for which he is 
entitled to compensation, the damages therefor may be 
recovered under this chapter." 
 
 
6 We recognize that the trust did take various actions 
related to the property between 1997 and 2015 when it filed its 
declaratory judgment action in the Land Court, but none of those 
actions -- inquiring about wetlands, leasing the property, 
attempting to sell the property -- related to stopping the 
town's discharge of water onto the property or claiming a taking 
on that basis. 
4 
 
 
here, a State statute that establishes certain rights (via an 
easement), the rationale applies equally. 
 
 
Several other jurisdictions have reached this same 
conclusion that a prescriptive easement does not, and cannot, 
amount to a taking.  See, e.g., State, ex rel. A.A.A. Invs. v. 
Columbus, 17 Ohio St. 3d 151, 152 (1985) (court rejected 
property owner's claim that city streets that had long covered 
portion of property amounted to taking).  "In the case of 
adverse possession, property is not taken.  Rather, once the 
[relevant statutory period] has expired, the former titleholder 
has lost his claim of ownership and the adverse possessor is 
thereafter maintaining its possession, not taking property."  
Id.  Viewed another way, a prescriptive easement is not a means 
for the government "to take private property without just 
compensation."  Weidner v. State, Dep't of Transp. & Pub. 
Facilities, 860 P.2d 1205, 1212 (Alaska 1993).  "Rather, the 
prescriptive period . . . requires a private landowner to bring 
a [takings] action . . . within a specified period of time.  At 
the expiration of the prescriptive period, the landowner's right 
to bring suit is extinguished."  Id.  See Stickney v. Saco, 770 
A.2d 592, 603 (Me. 2001) (rejecting property owner's claim that 
city, which had acquired easement over property, had taken 
property without just compensation). 
 
 
Inherent in a government's taking of private property is a 
right in the property that the government has commandeered; 
there can be no "taking" if there is no right.  In the case of a 
prescriptive easement, the rights the property owner once had 
are extinguished to the extent of the easement.  Such is the 
circumstance here.  The trust had no basis on which to claim a 
taking by the town because the town acquired the right to use 
the property (to discharge storm water onto it) via the 
prescriptive easement, and the trust lost its right to the 
property in that regard. 
 
 
Conclusion.  The Superior Court judge correctly concluded 
that the trust has not established a taking or any right to 
compensation or damages.7 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
                                                 
 
7 Because we conclude that no taking occurred, we need not 
address the trust's remaining arguments regarding the amount of 
damages or just compensation due to it. 
5 
 
 
 
Theresa K. Capobianco for the plaintiffs. 
 
Thomas P. Lane, Jr., for the defendant.