Court Opinion

ID: 9598692
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:10:41.484808+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:47.540942
License: Public Domain

CLARK, J.
I dissent.
Gion-Dietz (Gion v. City of Santa Cruz (1970) 2 Cal.3d 29 [84 Cal.Rptr. 162, 465 P.2d 50]) declared substantial law without adequate discussion, repudiated settled principles applicable to claims of dedication by adverse use, ignored constitutional guarantees of property *225rights, established an inequitable doctrine punishing the unselfish, and promulgated a rule counterproductive to the policy sought to be served. The Legislature repudiated Gion-Dietz in large part. We should acknowledge the court’s mistake and overrule the case.
Prior to Gion-Dietz no case held dedication of an easement occurred by adverse use for recreation, and substantial reason existed to believe that use could ripen into fee title only following compliance with statutory requirements for adverse possession. All cases had rejected claims a right to recreational use was acquired by prescription. Because the undefined public easement for recreation would deprive an owner of practically all use of his land, a dedication for recreational use would be equivalent to transfer of the fee. Civil Code section 802 enumerating servitudes which may be granted upon land does not include a recreational easement. In cases involving implied and express dedication of an interest in land for use as a park, courts had always held the full fee interest was transferred, the owner losing all right to possession. Finally, deeds purporting to create public easements for park purposes were held to convey fee interest so that grantors or their successors were precluded from making any use of the property, even one consistent with the purported easement, such as selling refreshments. (E.g., Slavich v. Hamilton (1927) 201 Cal. 299, 305-306 [257 P. 60]; Archer v. Salinas City (1892) 93 Cal. 43, 51 [28 P. 839]; Morse v. E.A. Robey & Co. (1963) 214 Cal.App.2d 464, 469-470 [29 Cal.Rptr. 734].)
The combination of statutory exclusion, park dedication cases, and denial of owner use, told us that a general public right to use private property for recreational purposes could not be acquired by prescription but rather only by compliance with requirements of adverse possession —substantial enclosure, cultivation, or improvement of the property. (Code Civ. Proc., § 325.)
Prior to Gion-Dietz, public use of open and unenclosed land was considered a license from the owner rather than an intention to dedicate. The presumption of license applied “where the user by the public is not over a definite and specified line, but extends over the entire surface of the tract. [Citation.] It will not be presumed, from mere failure to object, that the owner of such land so used intends to create in the public a right which would practically destroy his own right to use any part of the property. [Citations.]” (F.A. Hihn Co. v. City of Santa Cruz (1915) 170 Cal. 436, 448 [150 P. 62].) Like Gion-Dietz, Hihn involved public *226use of beach property. But the court concluded that the public did not obtain rights by adverse use or dedication. Hihn was followed in Manhattan Beach v. Cortelyou (1938) 10 Cal.2d 653, 668 [76 P.2d 483]; Whiteman v. City of San Diego (1920) 184 Cal. 163, 172 [193 P. 98]; and City of San Diego v. Hall (1919) 180 Cal. 165, 167-168 [179 P. 889].
A different rule was applied to roads where public use for more than the prescriptive period with knowledge of the owner and without permission or objection established dedicatory intent by the owner. (Union Transp. Co. v. Sacramento County (1954) 42 Cal.2d 235, 240-241 [267 P.2d 10] (citing numerous cases).) In road cases the public ordinarily is deemed to make the same use as the owner, the road is sharply defined and determination of a prescriptive right of way has not been deemed to deprive the owner of all use of his property. Additionally, roads are often expressly dedicated to the public. (O’Flaherty, This Land Is My Land: The Doctrine of Implied Dedication and Its Application to California Beaches (1971) 44 So.Cal.L.Rev. 1092, 1101-1102.) Finally, road use is often adverse to the owner either because the road is built by others or because others’ use of an existing road increases the owners’ burdens of repair and maintenance.
Hihn and similar cases placed the burden on those claiming dedication by prescription to negate the presumed license by showing circumstances in addition to mere public use. To establish dedication by prescription prior to Gion-Dietz, all cases required continuous use and many required the use be adverse. (Id.)
In Gion-Dietz, this court announced a new doctrine of public easement for recreational use acquired by prescription. The court ignored the purported easement was equivalent to transfer of fee and did not even discuss requisites of obtaining title by adverse possession.1 Absence of such an easement from the enumeration of easements in section 802 and the park purpose cases were dismissed in a cryptic footnote. (2 Cal.3d 29, 44-45, fn. 3.)
Gion-Dietz utilized the rule theretofore applied to road easement cases to establish dedication of open and unenclosed property. The presumption that public use of such property was derived by license from *227the owner was for the first time rejected, and the burden was placed on the landowner to establish the license. Further, the court held the fact use permission was given to some but not to all members of the public was insufficient to establish the license. (2 Cal.3d at p. 44.)
The court proclaimed: “We will not presume that owners of property today knowingly permit the general public to use their lands and grant a license to the public to do so.” (2 Cal.3d at p. 41.) The court concluded that if “the owner has not attempted to halt public use in any significant way... it will be held as a matter of law that he intended to dedicate the property or an easement therein to the public, and evidence that the public used the property for the prescriptive period is sufficient to establish dediction.” (Id.)
Gion-Dietz also repudiated the requirement of continuity in favor of sporadic use. (2 Cal.3d at p. 40.) And the traditional requirement of adversity was expressly eliminated, mere public use now being sufficient. “What must be shown is that persons used the property believing the public had a right to such use. This public use may not be ‘adverse’ to the interests of the owner in the sense that the word is used in adverse possession cases. If a trial court finds that the public has used land without objection or interference for more than five years, it need not make a separate finding of ‘adversity’ to support a decision of implied dedication.” (2 Cal.3d at p. 39.)
Repudiation of prior authority and change from a doctrine based on adverse use to one of simple use was grounded on the court’s announced preference for public recreation. (2 Cal.3d at pp. 42-43.) The court ignored the prohibition against taking property for public use without just compensation reflected in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and article I, section 14 of our state Constitution.
Commentators’ reaction to the per curiam opinion was immediate and striking. Edward L. Lascher, writing in the State Bar Journal called it a “bombshell.” (46 State Bar J.. 13, 16 (1971).) Assistant Attorney General Shavelson, head of the land law section, termed it an “earthquake of major proportions in California real property law.” (Shavelson, Gion v. City of Santa Cruz: Where Do We Go From Here? (1972) 47 State Bar J. 415.) With characteristic precision and understatement, Bernard E. Witkin referred to the decision as “innovative,” *228pointing to critical commentary and immediate legislative repudiation. (3 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (1973) pp. 1834-1836.)
Commentators were severe in their criticism of Gion-Dietz, noting not only departure from precedent,2 the failure to consider total loss to the owner, and the prohibition of taking property without compensation, but also that the case created an obvious inequity and would prove counterproductive to the public policy espoused. (Armstrong, Gion v. City of Santa Cruz; Now You Own It—Now You Don’t; or The Case of the Reluctant Philanthropist (1970) 45 L.A. Bar Bull. 529; Berger, Nice Guys Finish Last—At Least They Lose Their Property: Gion v. City of Santa Cruz (1971) 8 Cal.Western L.Rev. 75; Comment, This Land Is My Land: The Doctrine of Implied Dedication and Its Application to California Beaches (1971) 44 So.Cal.L.Rev. 1092; Comment, Implied Dedication: A Threat to the Owners of California’s Shoreline (1971) 11 Santa Clara Law. 327; Comment, Public or Private Ownership of Beaches: An Alternative to Implied Dedication (1971) 18 UCLA L.Rev. 795; Note, Californians Need Beaches—Maybe Yours! (1970) 7 San Diego L.Rev. 605; Note, Implied Dedication in California: A Need for Legislative Reform (1970) 7 Cal.Western L.Rev. 259; Note, The Common Law Doctrine of Implied Dedication and Its Effect on the California Coastline Property Owner (1971) 4 Loyola L.A.L. Rev. 438; Note, Public Access to Beaches (1970) 22 Stan.L.Rev. 564; Note (1971) 59 Cal.L.Rev. 231.)
The inequity addressed by commentators appears when weighing penalties against rewards to landowners having no immediate use for their *229property so that permitting public use poses no interference or impairment. Those landowners who were neighborly and hospitable in permitting public use were penalized by Gion-Dietz by loss of their land, while those excluding the public by fencing or other means were rewarded by retention of their exclusive use. While virtue is usually its own reward, the law does not usually penalize the virtuous.
The decision was asserted to be counterproductive because landowners to avoid prescriptive dedication would now exclude the public from using open and unimproved property for recreation purposes. Thus the very policy sought to be furthered would be defeated. (County of Orange v. Chandler-Sherman Corp. (1976) 54 Cal.App.3d 561, 564 [126 Cal.Rptr. 765] points out that one of the reactions to Gion-Dietz was “soaring sales of chain link fences.”)
The Legislature quickly and decisively repudiated the factual assumption of Gion-Dietz. (Stats. 1971, ch. 941, p. 1845.) Whereas in Gion-Dietz this court announced, “We will not presume that owners of property today knowingly permit the general public to use their lands and grant a license to the public to do so” (2 Cal.3d at p. 41), the Legislature concluded that California landowners are far more charitable and neighborly. Following our 1970 opinion in Gion-Dietz, the Legislature expressly stated in 1971 that: “The Legislature finds that: (1) It is in the best interests of the state to encourage owners of private real property to continue to make their lands available for public recreational use....” (Civ. Code, § 1009, subd. (a); italics added.) Further findings by the Legislature make it ábundantly clear we should not require property owners, by rules creating prescriptive dedication, to become less charitable and neighborly.3
*230Additional provisions of section 1009 and the 1971 amendment to Civil Code section 813 (Stats. 1971, ch. 941, § 1, p. 1845) clearly reflect the legislative judgment that the policy of public access to recreational areas is best served by encouraging landowners to allow the public to use their land. Section 1009, subdivision (b), provides: “... except as otherwise provided in subdivision (d), no use of such property by the public after the effective date of this section shall ever ripen to confer upon the public or any governmental body or unit a vested right to continue to make such use permanently, in the absence of an express written irrevocable offer of dedication of such property.... ” Subdivi*231sion (d) permits dedication by prescription where governmental entities have improved, maintained or cleaned the land by expenditure of public funds. Thus, the general rule in California is again that, absent public improvement or maintenance, the gracious landowner who permits the public to use his property is in no worse position than he who excludes the public.
While section 1009, subdivision (e), exempted from subdivision (b)’s prohibition of prescriptive dedication certain Oceanside properties, subdivision (f) provides: “No use, subsequent to the effective date of this section, by the public of property described in subdivision (e) shall constitute evidence or be admissible as evidence that the public or any governmental body or unit has any right in such property by implied dedication if the owner does any of the following actions.” Included in the actions an owner may take are posting signs disclaiming dedication once a year or more, publish disclaimer notices annually, or record a disclaimer revocable notice pursuant to Civil Code section 813. These provisions make clear that contrary to Gion-Dietz, owner conduct is not to be ignored in determining prescriptive dedication.
At the time Gion-Dietz was decided Civil Code section 813 provided the owner of property could protect his interest by recording a notice providing that the right of the public or any person to use the property was by permission. Recordation of such notice constituted evidence of permissive use. Gion-Dietz ignored this section. The 1971 amendment made the recordation conclusive evidence of permission, and further provided the permission “may be conditioned upon reasonable restrictions on the time, place, and manner of such public use, and no use in violation of such restrictions shall be considered public use for purposes of a finding of implied dedication.”
Not only has the Legislature rejected the Gion-Dietz assumptions but it has also rejected our proclamation that public use alone without regard to landowner conduct is sufficient to warrant a finding of prescriptive dedication. As to the noncoastal properties, prescriptive dedication is available only where governmental agencies have improved, maintained or cleaned the land by expenditure of public funds. As to the coastal properties, landowners may easily avoid the effect of Gion-Dietz by recording notices, or annually posting or publishing notices.
*232For the future all that remains of Gion-Dietz as to coastal properties is a trap for the unwary landowner, the one unaware of his right to record, post or publish notice. We should recognize this court’s mistake and eliminate the trap by overruling Gion-Dietz.
Appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied March 13, 1980, and the opinion was modified to read as printed above. Clark, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

A private easement for recreational purposes obviously would not have the effect of transferring fee.

The majority’s attempted reliance in the instant case upon O’Banion v. Borba (1948) 32 Cal.2d 145 [195 P.2d 10] and Morse v. Miller (1954) 128 Cal.App.2d 237 [275 P.2d 545], to establish precedent for Gion-Dietz fails. O’Banion neither mentions nor impliedly overrules Hihn. O’Banion was a prescriptive easement case dealing with roads in which the court did away with the presumption of adversity arising from open, continuous, notorious and peaceable use for the prescriptive period in favor of treating the issue as “one of fact, giving consideration to all the circumstances and the inferences that may be drawn therefrom.” (Id., at p. 149.) Hihn, which is not mentioned in O’Banion, involved a presumption of license where public use is over open land, not a roadway. Moreover, O’Banion did not specifically address the issue of burden of proof of license, and did not suggest that the landowner had the burden to prove license rather than a burden to prove adversity upon those claiming public use.
Morse recognized a recreational beach easement but the easement was implied in fact rather than prescriptive. In that case, a subdivider selling lots represented that the beach and athletic field would be open to use, and the court held that his statements constituted an implied dedication. While the court earlier in its opinion spoke of prescriptive dedication, this was by way of illustration, and furnishes no basis for a conclusion that mere use is sufficient to obtain a prescriptive recreational easement.

Civil Code section 1009 provides: “(a) The Legislature finds that: [¶] (1) It is in the best interests of the state to encourage owners of private real property to continue to make their lands available for public recreational use to supplement opportunities available on tax-supported publicly owned facilities. [¶] (2) Owners of private real property are confronted with the threat of loss of rights in their property if they allow or continue to allow members of the public to use, enjoy or pass over their property for recreational purposes. [¶] (3) The stability and marketability of record titles is clouded by such public use, thereby compelling the owner to exclude the public from his property. [¶] (b) Regardless of whether or not a private owner of real property has recorded a notice of consent to use of any particular property pursuant to Section 813 of the Civil Code or has posted signs on such property pursuant to Section 1008 of the Civil Code, except as otherwise provided in subdivision (d), no use of such property by the public after the effective date of this section shall ever ripen to confer upon the public or any governmental body or unit a vested right to continue to make such use permanently, in the absence of an express written irrevocable offer of dedication of such *230property to such use, made by the owner thereof in the manner prescribed in subdivision (c) of this section, which has been accepted by the county, city, or other public body to which the offer of dedication was made, in the manner set forth in subdivision (c). [¶] (c) In addition to any procedure authorized by law and not prohibited by this section, an irrevocable offer of dedication may be made in the manner prescribed in Section 7050 of the Government Code to any county, city, or other public body, and may be accepted or terminated, in the manner prescribed in that section, by the county board of supervisors in the case of an offer of dedication to a county, by the city council in the case of an offer of dedication to a city, or by the governing board of any other public body in the case of an offer of dedication to such body. [¶] (d) Where a governmental entity is using private lands by an expenditure of public funds on visible improvements on or across such lands or on the cleaning or maintenance related to the public use of such lands in such a manner so that the owner knows or should know that the public is making such use of his land, such use, including any public use reasonably related to the purposes of such, improvement, in the absence of either express permission by the owner to continue such use or the taking by the owner of reasonable steps to enjoin, remove or prohibit such use, shall .after five years ripen to confer upon the governmental entity a vested right to continue such use. [¶] (e) Subdivision (b) shall not apply to any coastal property which lies within 1,000 yards inland of the mean high tide line of the Pacific Ocean, and harbors, estuaries, bays and inlets thereof, but not including any property lying inland of the Carquinez Straits bridge, or between the mean high tide line and the nearest public road or highway, whichever distance is less. [¶] (f) No use, subsequent to the effective date of this section, by the public of property described in subdivision (e) shall constitute evidence or be admissible as evidence that the public or any governmental body or unit has any right in such property by implied dedication if the owner does any of the following actions: [¶] (1) Posts signs, as provided in Section 1008, and renews the same, if they are removed, at least once a year, or publishes annually, pursuant to Section 6066 of the Government Code, in a newspaper of general circulation in the county or counties in which the land is located, a statement describing the property and reading substantially as follows: ‘Right to pass by permission and subject to control of owner: Section 1008, Civil Code.’ [¶] (2) Records a notice as provided in Section 813. [¶] (3) Enters into a written agreement with any federal, state, or local agency providing for the public use of such land. [¶] After taking any of the actions set forth in paragraph (1), (2), or (3), and during the time such action is effective, the owner shall not prevent any public use which is appropriate under the permission granted pursuant to such paragraphs by physical obstruction, notice, or otherwise. [¶] (g) The permission for public use of real property referred to in subdivision (f) may be conditioned upon reasonable restrictions on the time, place, and manner of such public use, and no use in violation of such restrictions shall be considered public use for purposes of a finding of implied dedication.”