Court Opinion

ID: 9577484
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:35:22.593451+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:40.020257
License: Public Domain

McALLISTER, J.,
specially concurring.
This suit involves a claim of a prescriptive easement to periodically flood plaintiff’s land. According to the majority opinion the test of the continuity of use is whether “the irrigation flooding of plaintiff’s land was the normal use which an average owner of farm land requiring irrigation would make if he were the owner.” As authority for this test it cites Springer v. Durrette, 217 Or 198, 342 P2d 132 (1959) and Hay v. Stevens, 262 Or 193, 497 P2d 362 (1972).
Springer involved a claim of title by adverse possession. The adverse possessor used the land for grazing only a part of each year; the rest of the year the land was subject to floods. The court held that under the circumstances the requirements of actual physical possession and of continuity were met, citing 6 Powell on Real Property § 1018 and 3 American Law of Property § 15.3, to the effect that the claimant need only show that he has used the land in question in the way in which an average owner would have used it. The authorities cited deal with the acquisition of title, by adverse possession, which was the issue in Springer.
The test of the claimant’s use in terms of the use which an average owner would make of the land is commonly employed in cases involving claims of title by adverse possession. Grimstad v. Dordan, 256 Or 135, 141, 471 P2d 778 (1970); Fry v. Woodward, 221 Or 39, 43-44, 350 P2d 183 (1960); Norgard v. Busher, 220 Or 297, 304, 349-P2d 490, 80 ALR2d 1161 (1960). *374In those cases the test seems to be employed in connection with the requirements that the adverse use be open, continuous and exclusive, as a way of emphasizing that those requirements must be met only insofar as appropriate, taking into consideration the nature of the land and the uses for which it is suited.
"Where, however, a claim of easement by prescription rather than a claim of title is involved, the traditional test of continuity of use has been related to the nature of the use and the needs of the claimant, rather than to the nature of the land. The following is from 2 American Law of Property 270, § 8.57:
“For a use to be continuous there must be no cessation of use. Many uses are discontinuous in their nature, as in most cases of ways. But a use discontinuous in nature may yet be continuous as that term is used in the law of prescription. The essential fact is that the use be made as occasion may demand without a break in the attitude of non-subordination that marks an adverse use.” (Emphasis added.)
This approach was adopted in Feldman v. Knapp, 196 Or 453, 473, 250 P2d 92 (1952):
“To establish continuity of user for the statutory period of ten 3Tears, it is not necessary to show such use on each day throughout the period. It is necessary only to show that the claimant made such reasonable use of the way as his needs required. * * *” (Emphasis added.)
The opinion in Feldman then quotes from 28 CJS Easements 649, § 13b, and from 17 Am Jur 972, Easements § 60, to the same effect.
However, in Hay v. Stevens, supra, the “average owner” test was applied in a prescriptive easement *375case. The easements involved were footpaths which, because the dominant estates were occupied only part of the time, were used only intermittently. The traditional test in prescriptive easement cases, focusing on the claimant’s needs and the nature of the use, would have produced the same result in that case. In my view the “average owner test” was improperly substituted for the traditional prescriptive easement test in Hay v. Stevens. Similarly, in the present case, the traditional prescriptive easement test would justify finding an easement by prescription regardless of what use the average owner would make of his land. I think the “average owner test” is not applicable in this case.