Opinion ID: 1224024
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The access road and pipeline

Text: In Chollar-Potosi Mining Co. v. Kennedy & Keating, 3 Nev. 328 (1867), this court held that an adverse use may be inferred where a claimant establishes a roadway on another's property. Id. at 340; Wilfon, 105 Nev. at 609, 781 P.2d at 770. A permissive use cannot ripen into an adverse use absent specific notice to the owner of the servient estate that such use is henceforth adverse for purposes of creating a prescriptive easement. Green v. Stansfield, 886 P.2d 117, 120-21 (Utah.Ct.App.1994). Although permission to use another's property negates adverse use, we agree with Bailey that adversity was created by the existence of the roadway on the northern portion of Jordan's property. See Chollar-Potosi, 3 Nev. at 340. In addition, Rusk gave conflicting testimony as to whether the previous owner of the Jordan tract gave permission to install the new diversion works and access road across the northern section of the property. Here, the trial court was free, as the finder of fact, to accept whatever version given by Rusk was the most credible. In this determination, it was appropriate to conclude that the construction and use of the road was not obtained via permission from the prior owner. Thus, the trial court acted within its discretion when it concluded that the utilization of the northern portion of Jordan's property was adverse. The remaining question to resolve is whether these two routes satisfy the other elements of an easement by prescription.