Opinion ID: 657166
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The County's challenges

Text: 22 Upon receipt of the response of the Connecticut Supreme Court to our certification, we asked the parties for supplemental briefs addressed to that response. Not surprisingly, the County has asked us to reject the decision of the Connecticut Court. The County argues that the Court did not respond to the questions certified and that the Court improperly based its decision on independent findings of fact. Putting to one side the question whether we could reject the Connecticut Court's response--the County cites no case where that has occurred--we see no persuasive reason why we should do so. It is true that the Court did not answer precisely the first question we certified, i.e., the general question of whether an avigation easement can be acquired by prescription under Connecticut law. Nonetheless, the Court did answer a material subset of that question, i.e., whether an avigation easement can be acquired under Connecticut law in these circumstances. We believe that the Connecticut Supreme Court's decision is dispositive, both as responsive to our certification and also, under Erie R.R. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938), as a controlling statement of state law regarding a common law claim. 23 The County asserts that the Connecticut Supreme Court has disregarded the mandate of this Court, and usurped the jurisdiction of this Court by presuming to decide an ultimate question of fact which is the sole prerogative of this Court. We think the County mischaracterizes the Connecticut Supreme Court's opinion. To the contrary, the Court applied Connecticut's adverse use requirement to the record supplied by the district court and determined that the County could not, as a matter of Connecticut law, have acquired a prescriptive avigation easement. 24 It is true that to the extent that the Connecticut Supreme Court's opinion was based on federal law we would not be bound by it. It is also true that the Connecticut Court's ruling that the landowners could not obtain injunctive relief against the overflights was based upon federal law. But, the County agrees with that assertion. What the County disagrees with is the view of the Connecticut Court that since the landowners could not have reclaimed the exclusive use of the airspace above their properties ... the use of that airspace by the [County] can not be considered adverse. 227 Conn. at 503, 629 A.2d 1084. The County argues vigorously that this proposition is incorrect. But, the proposition, whether or not one endorses it, is a statement of Connecticut law that we are required to accept. 25 Similarly, the Connecticut Supreme Court's conclusion that the possibility of a constitutional takings claim by the landowners did not satisfy Connecticut's adverse use requirement is also a binding statement of state law. The Connecticut Court strongly suggested that it would not ever require a landowner to assert a constitutional takings claim in order to avoid the acquisition of a prescriptive avigation easement, and squarely held that on the record before it defendant landowners were not obliged to do so. Id. at 504, 629 A.2d 1084. These also are statements as to what constitutes sufficient adverse use under Connecticut state law. 26 Therefore, we are bound by the decision of the Connecticut Supreme Court that the County could not as a matter of Connecticut law acquire a prescriptive avigation easement on the facts of this case. The district court's June 2, 1993 grant of partial summary judgment to the County on its prescriptive easement claim is reversed. The district court is directed to enter judgment for the landowners on that claim, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. Such remand is without prejudice to determination of the remaining claims and to the right of any party after final judgment to appeal all issues not decided by us in this opinion.