Opinion ID: 2976648
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Easement by Prescription

Text: Next, we consider Plaintiffs-Appellees’ claim that they have a right to an easement by prescription over the Sullivan and Rice tracts. “To create a prescriptive easement, the use and enjoyment of the property must be adverse, under a claim of right, continuous, uninterrupted, open, visible, exclusive, with the knowledge and acquiescence of the owner of the servient tenement, and must continue for the full prescriptive period.” Pevear, 924 S.W.2d at 116. The Quiet Title Act, however, may foreclose Plaintiffs-Appellees’ claim because it provides that “[n]othing in this section shall be construed to permit suits against the United States based upon adverse possession.” 28 U.S.C. § 2409a(n). Plaintiffs-Appellees argue that the Quiet Title Act does not foreclose adversepossession claims that ripened before the government acquired title to the lands in question. At least three district courts have reached the conclusion that such suits do not constitute claims of adverse possession against the United States, but rather are claims of adverse possession against the prior owner. Tadlock v. United States, 774 F. Supp. 1035, 1037-38 (S.D. Miss. 1990); Brewer v. United States, 562 F. Supp. 128, 133 (E.D. Mo. 1983); Watts v. United States, No. 8:00CV552, 2002 WL 87056, at  (D. Neb. Jan. 23, 2002) (unpublished opinion). Thus, Plaintiffs-Appellees’ claim may be cognizable to the extent that it argues that they had an easement over the field-access road prior to the government’s purchase of the Rice and Sullivan tracts, rather than that they obtained an easement against the government via adverse possession. Even if the panel were to allow the claim, however, Plaintiffs-Appellees have not met their burden of proving adverse possession. Their own evidence arguably demonstrates that they and their predecessors enjoyed permission from the Rice and Sullivan families to use the field-access road. A permissive use of a roadway cannot amount to the adverse use required to sustain a claim of easement by adverse possession. Lively v. Noe, 460 S.W.2d 852, 854 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1970). We do not need to resolve either the factual or legal issues surrounding a possible easement by prescription today, however.