Opinion ID: 2637937
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: East of the house

Text: Green's use of the eastern area of the claimed property was also sufficient to demonstrate actual use for purposes of adverse possession. To the immediate east of the house, Green planted a garden. Further out, at a distance of some forty feet from the house, she put in fruit trees and perennials. She also cleared a trail leading from the house southeast to the edge of the bluff. In the northeast area of the bluff, she set up a picnic table and bench, and used the area for outdoor lunches. In addition, Green extracted rock from the eastern bluff throughout the adverse possession period. The extraction areas were in the northeast corner of the property, at the top of the bluff, and in the southeast corner at the bottom of the bluff. A neighbor offered strong testimony that the bluff side of Shaw Creek overlooking Billie Harrild's housean area defined by Green's claimed eastern borderwas locally reputed to belong to Green, and Green testified that she believed her grandmother had given her that piece of the [family's] property across from Shaw Creek. In Bentley Family Trust v. Lynx Enterprises, we found that an adverse possessor took title to property bordered by a highway and a slough, in part because the record owner and adverse possessor had treated the highway and slough as boundaries enclosing the possessor's unified parcel of property. [44] Following Bentley Family Trust, evidence that Green, the record owners, and others in the community believed that Green owned land bordered by Shaw Creek weighs significantly in favor of her actual possession claim for this part of the property. Much of the eastern section of the property is a steep slope descending to Shaw Creek. As Vezey's engineer testified, the property is difficult to use; he suggested that a landowner's use for the area might reasonably be limited to toboggan runs. Because the actual use required of adverse possessors varies with the nature of the property, [45] we conclude that Green's activities on the claimed land to the east of the house are sufficient to show actual use, and that Judge Savell correctly awarded her the eastern area of the bluff property.