Court Opinion

ID: 9785303
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 21:15:09.150905+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:31.203161
License: Public Domain

Justice COATS,
dissenting.
I too would find that an easement is a right or interest in real property, the exercise or enforcement of which may be lost by failing to take appropriate action within the statutorily prescribed limitations period; but unlike the majority, I can find no justification for the judicial imposition of a special rule of accrual for one narrow class of easements, largely exempting them from loss by adverse possession. It seems clear that the majority’s new rule, modeled after variations recently adopted in a handful of other jurisdictions, does not reflect the common law of England and, as best I can determine, does not even embody the rationale of the jurisdiction that thought it up. Most importantly, however, even if I considered such a rule meritorious policy, I would nevertheless reject its judicial adoption as a flagrant usurpation of the legislative function, allocated elsewhere by our constitution.
Despite the majority’s protestations to the contrary, in my view it carves out an exception to section 38^41-101 of the revised statutes, a legislatively prescribed bar to any action to enforce an interest in real property not brought within eighteen years after the right to do so first accrues. Solely for easements that were expressly created but never yet put to use, the majority declares that a cause of action to enforce the easement against obstruction by the servient estate accrues only upon need, demand, and refusal, rather than simply upon open, notorious, and incompatible usage by the servient estate.
Even in New York, the state from which the majority borrows the idea for this exception, see Castle Associates v. Schwartz, 63 A.D.2d 481, 407 N.Y.S.2d 717, 723 (N.Y.App.Div.1978), that jurisdiction’s high court limits the exception’s applicability to easements the precise locations of which are as yet undetermined. See Spiegel v. Ferraro, 73 N.Y.2d 622, 543 N.Y.S.2d 15, 541 N.E.2d 15, 17 (1989) (explaining Castle as addressing only unlocated easements, like the one actually involved in that case). At least when limited in this fashion, the rule is rationally related to the important requirement of notice to the dominant estate, which has always been integral to acquisition by adverse possession.
By contrast, where, nonuse notwithstanding, there is certainty about the location of the easement (as in this case) the majority’s policy justifications amount to little more than arguments against adhering to the doctrine of adverse possession. By shifting the focus of “adversity” for this tiny class of cases, from a concern for the nature and permanence of the encroachment itself to a concern strictly for the existing easement-holder’s interest in putting an end to it, the majority’s rigid, mechanical (but universally applicable) rule1 actually flies in the face of the policies and equities furthered by the doctrine of adverse possession. Presumably, the majority’s rule would permit a forced removal of even a long-standing permanent structure, like a house, as long as the easement holder brings his action within eighteen years of actually deciding that he wants to make use of his easement and expressly demanding the structure’s removal.
Whether the majority’s rule has merit from a policy perspective, however, I consider a legislative matter. The majority, which dates its so-called “modern rule” from 1978, does not assert that it existed at the common law, as the General Assembly has allowed that law to remain in effect in this jurisdiction, see § 2-4-111, C.R.S. (2007), and the Restatement most certainly does not. See Restatement (Third) Property: Servitudes § 7.7 (2000). Nor do I consider this court constitutionally empowered to develop new exceptions to accepted common law doctrines, any more than legislative provisions, *1277under the guise of announcing evidentiary guidelines. To decide, as the majority does today, that in the limited case of expressly created but never used easements, the right to bring an action to enforce an obstructed easement accrues only upon actual need and unsuccessful demand by the easement holder, rather than upon any use openly incompatible with the easement holder’s property interest, amounts to nothing less than judicially legislating substantive law.
Because I believe our form of government allocates to the General Assembly such legislative decisions, I respectfully dissent.

. Despite the concurring opinion’s noble attempt to recast the majority rule in more palatable terms, the unyielding language of the majority's holding simply cannot be read to merely include nonuse as a consideration in the determination of adversity. "Following precedent in other jurisdictions,” maj. op. at 1265, the majority adopts a hard and fast rule of accrual, preventing commencement of the limitations period until the easement holder decides to make use of his easement, even though a servient estate’s encroachment be incompatible with every conceivable use by the holder.