Opinion ID: 2407095
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: use of road at time of trial

Text: Doctor Stickle acquired some 52 acres fronting on Wild Horse Creek Road. Around 1968, he built a residence on a 3.73-acre tract carved from the larger area and lived there at the time of trial. The paved road provided access to his residence. He conveyed the remainder of the tract to County Management Corporation, a Stickle family-owned corporation which raises horses on the land. Horses are hauled to and from the land over the paved road in two and four-horse trailers, pulled by cars or pickup trucks. The Cowdrys acquired some property from Miss Link in 1966. There was an old house on the property at that time. The Cowdrys tore it down and erected a small house which is used as a weekend and summer residence. Access to it is by the paved portion of the roadway. The two tracts owned by plaintiff-intervenor Cutts and plaintiffs-intervenors Jones and Pieters appear to be 10 acres each. There is a house on the Cutts tract. That property was owned by the Cowdrys from about 1933 to 1935 or 1936, when the Cuttses acquired it. They used the house as a summer and weekend residence. The Cuttses made similar use of the house, at least until the death of Mr. Cutts in 1956. Since that time it has been used by Mrs. Cutts' daughters, Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Pieters, as a weekend and summer residence. There had been a house on the Jones-Pieters tract at the time the Cuttses acquired their property, but it had since been torn down. Access to the house on the Cutts property was over the paved road and the ridge road. There were no other houses served by either the paved road or the ridge road at the time of trial. There were three houses beyond the point where the road forked to the right, in addition to the Cowdry house. Those houses, as well as a Jesuit retreat known as Green Hills, were served by that road and made use of the paved road from the Y to Wild Horse Creek Road. Miss Link conducts farming operations on her land. She pastures cattle, makes hay and grows some other farm crops. About 2½ years prior to trial, she sold timber on some of her land to a man who took out around 15,000 feet of timber. The timber that was removed was trucked over the ridge and paved roads. Doctor Thomas purchased his property in 1962. He used it for farming. He ordinarily did not use either the paved road or the ridge road for access to his property. The roadway provides the sole access to some 400 acres of land in the vicinity owned by defendant Link. A greater part of the land has been in her family since 1800. The major portion of it lies to the north of the road. All of Miss Link's holdings are contiguous except for a 42.25 acre tract on which the paved portion of the road runs in part. The contiguity of that tract with her remaining land was destroyed in 1965-1966 when she sold about five acres to the Cowdrys, parents of the plaintiffs-intervenors Cowdry-Luten-Park. In the sale of that property, Miss Link reserved a 15-foot easement across the southern boundary of the tract for roadway purposes for the use and benefit of land owned by her adjoining the property herein conveyed on the West and North   . Miss Link also reserved for herself an easement for roadway purposes on the portion of the paved road which ran across the land conveyed to the Cowdrys.