Court Opinion

ID: 9592798
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:17:02.176673+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:05:31.330121
License: Public Domain

Justice Mitchell
dissenting.
I believe that the majority errs in holding that the evidence failed to support the trial court’s findings and conclusions to the effect that the defendant interrupted the plaintiffs’ use of the road now known as Ocean View Boulevard West and, thereby, prevented the creation of an easement by prescription over that road. In my view, the evidence, even as summarized in the opinion of the majority, supported the trial court’s findings and conclusions that the plaintiffs’ use of the- road was interrupted by the defendant and its predecessor in title on numerous occasions. Therefore, I am of the opinion that the trial court did not err in concluding that the plaintiffs held no prescriptive easement in the road, and that the Court of Appeals was correct in affirming the judgment of the trial court.
I note at the outset my agreement with the majority’s view that by virtue of the limited nature of our order allowing discretionary review in this case, the questions of whether the defendant dedicated the road in question here to public use and whether any such dedication was accepted by the proper public authorities are not before us. Instead, we are faced only with issues to be *56resolved in determining whether the plaintiffs have established a prescriptive easement. Even so, as these plaintiffs attempt to establish the right of the entire public to a prescriptive easement across the defendant’s land, an argument can be made that, as a matter of law, the easement does not exist unless control of it has been accepted by properly constituted public authorities. See, e.g., Chesson v. Jordan, 224 N.C. 289, 29 S.E.2d 906 (1944). I find it unnecessary to consider or attempt to resolve any such question, however, as I believe that the trial court was correct in concluding that the plaintiffs’ adverse use of the easement asserted was interrupted several times and did not continue without interruption for the required period of 20 years.
In the present case, the plaintiffs’ evidence tended to show that the previous owners of the land on which Ocean View Boulevard West is now located permitted members of the public to cross their land at will until the 1960’s. For example, the plaintiffs’ witness Harrell Paden, a long-time Brunswick County resident, testified that he and his family crossed the land in question regularly from the 1930’s through the 1950’s, and were allowed to do so by the owners. Although the defendant offered evidence that its property had always had the reputation of being private property, the evidence tending to show that the former owners of the property permitted the public to cross it at will prior to 1960 was uncontroverted. Additionally, easements by prescription are not favored in the law. Potts v. Burnett, 301 N.C. 663, 273 S.E.2d 264 (1981). Thus, “[t]he law presumes that the use of a way over another’s land is permissive or with the owner’s consent unless the contrary appears.” Dickinson v. Pake, 284 N.C. 576, 580, 201 S.E.2d 897, 900 (1973). In light of the defendant’s evidence, with no evidence to the contrary having been introduced, the trial court was required to find and conclude that any crossing of the defendant’s property by the plaintiffs prior to 1960 was a mere permissive use which could not commence the 20-year period of adverse use required for the establishment of an easement by prescription. Id.
Based upon substantial competent evidence introduced at trial in the present case, the trial court found that Holden Beach Realty Corporation, the defendant’s immediate predecessor in title, purchased the land now owned by the defendant in 1962. The trial court further found, inter alia:
*577. Defendant, Holden Beach Enterprises, Inc., was incorporated in 1985 and in that same year acquired all the stock of Holden Beach Realty Corporation, [which] . . . was then dissolved and Holden Beach Enterprises, Inc., became the owner of all of its assets through said dissolution.
35. In 1963 James Griffin, at the direction of Holden Beach Realty Corporation, personally placed a large log approximately 10 feet in length and one foot in diameter across the entrance to [what is now Ocean View Boulevard West] ... to restrict unauthorized persons from entering the Subdivision; the log remained in place for several months time.
36. In the mid 1960’s James Griffin at the direction of Holden Beach Realty Corporation placed a cable across the entrance of [what is now Ocean View Boulevard West] . . . secured by two posts and a lock; subsequently the cable was extended to the north and south along the eastern property line of the Subdivision; the cable remained in place until 1972.
37. In 1972 the cable was replaced by Holden Beach Realty Corporation with a farm gate that was secured by lock and key; the farm gate was replaced around 1975 with a second farm gate which remained intact until around 1979; the second farm gate was also secured by a lock and key.
38. Keys to the farm gates were issued to persons allowed on the Subdivision property by Holden Beach Realty Corporation; the keys were kept at the corporation sales office.
40. In 1985 Holden Beach Enterprises, Inc., placed a guard booth at the entrance of the Subdivision in the middle of Ocean View Boulevard further restricting public access to the Subdivision; the guard booth has been manned by security guards employed by Holden Beach Enterprises, Inc., since 1985.
55. Defendant and Holden Beach Realty Corporation interrupted the general public’s use of the Subdivision property on numerous occasions since 1963 by erecting physical barriers across the *58entrance to the property; said barriers remaining in place for substantial periods of time.
56. The physical barriers placed at the entrance of the [what is now Ocean View Boulevard West] ... by the Defendant and its predecessor in title prevented the full and free access of the public across the Subdivision property.
(Emphasis added.)
Based upon its findings of fact, the trial court concluded as a matter of law, inter alia:
5. Plaintiffs [sic] use and public use of Defendant’s property has not been continuous for twenty years and Defendant has interrupted such use since 1963.
7. Plaintiff has failed to establish a right held by the general public to a prescriptive easement across Ocean View Boulevard [West] within the Subdivision.
8. Ocean View Boulevard [West] within the Subdivision is a private street.
Based on its findings and conclusions, the trial court adjudged and decreed that: “2. Ocean View Boulevard [West] within Holden Beach West Subdivision is declared to be a private right-of-way over which the public has acquired no prescriptive easement, nor any other rights.”
As Professor Webster has noted:
The requirement that an adverse user’s usage of land must be “uninterrupted” for the prescriptive period in order to create an easement by prescription means that the evidence must show that the potential servient owner has not succeeded, either by threats or the construction of physical barriers, in causing a discontinuance of the use of the land. If the owner of the land blocks the usage of the land, however briefly, this destroys the continuity of usage required. While the erection of actual physical barriers preventing usage and the prosecution of a law suit to judgment will constitute “interruptions,” mere ineffective protests or disregarded remonstrances should serve only to strengthen the evidence of adverse use *59and should have no significance as interruptions of the easement claimant’s use.
P. Hetrick and J. McLaughlin, Webster’s Real Estate Law in North Carolina § 321 (3d ed. 1988) (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added). Stated more succinctly, “[a]n interruption to an easement for a right-of-way ‘wouid be any act, done by the owner of the servient tenement which would prevent the full and free enjoyment of the easement. . . .’ ” Dickinson v. Pake, 284 N.C. at 581, 201 S.E.2d at 901 (emphasis added) (quoting Ingraham v. Hough, 46 N.C. 39, 44 (1853)).
The majority seems to conclude that the efforts of the defendant, Holden Beach Enterprises, Inc., and its immediate predecessor in title, Holden Beach Realty Corporation, amounted to nothing more than “ineffective protests” or “disregarded remonstrances” which were ignored by the plaintiffs. However, the evidence introduced at trial clearly supported the trial court’s findings and conclusions to the effect that the physical barriers erected by the defendant prevented the full and free enjoyment of the easement by the plaintiffs by blocking access to it, however briefly.
The mere uncontroverted fact that the defendant placed cables and gates across the easement — acts which would block or “discontinue” public use sufficiently to be criminal if done in a public highway — permitted the trial court to properly find and conclude that the defendant had prevented the full and free enjoyment of the easement by the plaintiffs. Ingraham v. Hough, 46 N.C. 39, 44 (1853). In the present case, however, the defendant was not required to rely solely upon the placing of such barriers to show that it had interrupted the plaintiffs’ prescriptive use of the easement. The facts as found by the trial court, which were supported by evidence, indicate that each of the barriers erected by the defendant or its immediate predecessor in title remained in place for several months or several years. The trial court could properly infer from such evidence that the barriers prevented the plaintiffs from using the easement, at least to the extent necessary to temporarily prevent the plaintiffs’ full and free enjoyment of the easement; no more was required to support the trial court’s conclusion that the defendant had interrupted the plaintiffs’ use of the easement sufficiently to discontinue the 20-year measuring period required for establishing a prescriptive easement.
*60In fact, the plaintiffs’ own witness, Harrell Paden, testified that, when he first came to the gate installed by the defendant in 1974 or 1975, he “turned around and went back.” The plaintiffs’ witness, Kermit Coble, testified that during the time the cable was across the easement, he only used the easement after friends got the key to the padlock from the owner — a permissive use. Further, there was direct testimony by Sidney Swartz that, as far back as 1964, the public could not get into the Holden Beach West area. Such evidence was more than sufficient to support the trial court’s findings and conclusions.
It. is true that one witness for the plaintiffs, Raymond Cope, who never went to the area in question before 1973 or 1974, testified that he and his family ignored the barriers which had been erected across the easement and also ignored the guard in the guard booth which was installed later. He also testified that on one occasion, he and others organized a protest and drove past the guard house despite the guard’s efforts to stop them. Additional evidence for the plaintiffs tended to show that at times the gates erected across the easement had been knocked down and that there were tire paths around the various obstacles placed across the easement, which evidence would support an inference that some individuals were able to go onto the defendant’s property. Such evidence, however, did not in any way preclude the trial court from making findings and conclusions to the effect that the defendant had interrupted and at least temporarily discontinued the plaintiffs’ full and free use of the easement. The mere fact that some of the plaintiffs may have been able at times to break down or circumvent the physical barriers erected to prevent unauthorized persons from coming on the defendant’s property — which is all the plaintiffs’ evidence tended to show — did not prevent the trial court from properly making findings and conclusions to the effect that the defendant and its predecessor in interest had, on numerous occasions for varying periods of time, prevented the full and free enjoyment of the easement by the plaintiffs. Having made just such findings and conclusions, the trial court was required to adjudge, as it did, that “the public has acquired no prescriptive easement, nor any other rights.”
For the foregoing reasons, I believe that the trial court did not err in concluding that the plaintiffs’ use of the road in question was not continuous and uninterrupted and that the public held no prescriptive easement in the road. Therefore, I dissent and *61vote to affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals, which affirmed the judgment of the trial court.
Justices WEBB and WHICHARD join in this dissenting opinion.