Friends of the Hastain Trail v. Coldwater Dev. LLC

• Decision Date: 27 July 2016
• Docket Number: B251814,B249841
• Citation: 205 Cal.Rptr.3d 270,1 Cal.App.5th 1013
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: FRIENDS OF THE HASTAIN TRAIL et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. COLDWATER DEVELOPMENT LLC et al., Defendants and Appellants; Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, Intervener and Respondent.

1 Cal.App.5th 1013

205 Cal.Rptr.3d 270

FRIENDS OF THE HASTAIN TRAIL et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents

v. COLDWATER DEVELOPMENT LLC et al., Defendants and Appellants;Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, Intervener and Respondent.

B249841

B251814

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 1, California.

Filed July 27, 2016

Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, Roy G. Weatherup, Los Angeles, Sheldon H. Sloan, Wesley G. Beverlin and Raymond R. Barrera, Los Angeles, for Defendants and Appellants.

Overton, Lyman & Prince and Stephen L. Jones, Los Angeles, for Plaintiffs and Respondents.

Blank Rome; Finestone & Richter; Law Offices of Eric F. Edmunds, Jr., and Eric F. Edmunds, Jr., for Intervener and Respondent.

CHANEY, J.

Defendants Lydda Lud, LLC (Lydda Lud) and Coldwater Development LLC (Coldwater) appeal from a judgment declaring a public trail easement was established by public dedication through defendants' property for hiking, jogging, and dog-walking. Defendants contend the trial court erred in finding a public dedication of such an easement. We conclude no substantial evidence supports the court's finding that the public acquired an easement through defendants' property by implied dedication as provided for under Gion v. City of Santa Cruz (consolidated with Dietz v. King ) (1970) 2 Cal.3d 29, 84 Cal.Rptr. 162, 465 P.2d 50 (Gion ). We therefore reverse the judgment and the subsequent award of attorney fees to plaintiffs.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL SUMMARY

A. The Peak Trail

In the early part of the last century, the Beverly Hills and Los Angeles fire departments constructed and maintained fire roads in the cities' wilderness areas to facilitate prevention and suppression of wildfires. In mountainous areas the fire roads were originally situated atop ridgelines, but by 1940 new roads had been constructed at lower elevations for ease of use and to mitigate erosion. The new fire roads ran near to and roughly parallel with the ridgelines, and the original roads were abandoned.

This litigation involves two parallel fire roads, an older one and its newer replacement. The older road climbed to and ran along an approximately 400–foot–long ridgeline running roughly north and south in a steep, narrow, canyon-type area of chaparral and oakwood in Los Angeles, approximately half a mile west of Coldwater Canyon Drive and a mile east of Lake Drive. By 1940, this road had been abandoned in favor of a new fire road that ran immediately to the west of the ridgeline and roughly parallel to it, but at a lesser elevation. Some hikers continued to use the abandoned road, and it came to be called the “Peak Trail” by some because it led to a high point in the terrain that afforded a 360 degree view of Los Angeles. A permanent survey marker was installed at the summit of the Peak Trail in 1952, becoming a hiking destination. The Peak Trail was situated wholly on private property.

B. The Hastain/Coldwater Trail

By 1940, the older fire road had been replaced by the Hastain Fire Road, which began at Coldwater Canyon Drive and ran south southwest for a time before meandering generally west to Lake Drive, like a backwards lazy-L. The northeastern half of the Hastain Fire Road ran through undeveloped private property, some of it owned by defendants' predecessors, and the southwestern half ran through Franklin Canyon Park, which is public property.

The Hastain Fire Road was used by hikers, bicyclists, equestrians and dog walkers, some of whom called it the Hastain Trail and some the Coldwater Trail. These users could access the road either from the northeast at Coldwater Canyon Drive or southwest at Lake Drive.

Before 2004, a hiker on the Hastain Trail could transition to the roughly parallel Peak Trail by climbing a moderately steep embankment. In 2004, grading reduced this climb, making the Peak Trail more accessible.

C. Development Along the Trails

In the early 1990's, residential construction began where the Hastain Fire Road started at Coldwater Canyon Drive and moved southward, roughly following the road. By the time of trial, approximately 17 private residences existed in a gated community along the road, and that portion of it taken over by the development was rededicated as Beverly Ridge Terrace, a private road. This development also eliminated the Peak Trail north of its summit, such that by the time of trial both the Hastain Fire Road and Peak Trail were roughly half their original lengths, their northern halves having been either rededicated or eliminated. Both now began independently at the southern border of the Beverly Ridge community, proceeded in parallel roughly southwestward, and “joined” (via an embankment) after roughly 230 feet, after which the Hastain Fire Road continued generally southwestward to Franklin Canyon Park and on to Lake Drive.

The next four lots running south from the Beverly Ridge community were purchased by Coldwater in 2011, and the two south from those were purchased by Lydda Lud in 2006. Franklin Canyon Park begins after the southernmost of these six lots, which remain undeveloped except for the previously mentioned 2004 grading. The Hastain Fire Road runs through these lots and through Franklin Canyon Park to Lake Drive, with a momentary emergence from the park into a noncontiguous lot owned by Lydda Lud. Mohamed Hadid, the managing member of both Coldwater and Lydda Lud, planned to build large homes on the parcels, believing this development too would result in relocation and rededication of a portion of the Hastain Fire Road. Hadid obtained the required permits and, in 2011, recommenced grading.

D. Litigation

Plaintiff Ellen Scott, who often used the Hastain Trail, observed the 2011 grading activity on defendants' property and organized six or seven fellow users into an association called the “Friends of the Hastain Trail,” the purpose of which was to prove the trail had been dedicated to the public by operation of law as a result of its use by the public for a prescriptive period of at least five continuous years prior to March 1972.¹ Scott created a Web site and sent emails and distributed fliers seeking “legacy hikers,” i.e., those who had hiked the trail prior to 1972.

In September 2011, Scott and the Friends of the Hastain Trail filed a complaint to quiet title to a public recreational trail easement through defendants' property. They alleged the Hastain Trail had been impliedly dedicated to the public as a result of 50 years of public use, including five years of open and continuous use immediately prior to March 1972. Plaintiffs sought injunctive relief preventing defendants from blocking or eliminating the trail.

In April 2012, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (the MRCA), a partnership between the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and two park districts, joined the litigation by filing a complaint in intervention. We will refer to Scott, the Friends of the Hastain Trail and the MRCA as “plaintiffs.”

Defendants answered the complaints and asserted affirmative defenses, including laches, unclean hands, waiver, and the “Lack of a Basis for Injunctive Relief.” According to defendants, the Hastain Trail was actually a fire road of the sort that is routinely relocated or rededicated to accommodate land development. Defendants disputed the existence of the Peak Trail entirely, and alleged the easement plaintiffs sought would render their property “undevelopable” and “utterly useless.”

A court trial took place over eight days, at the outset of which the trial judge, counsel for both sides, Hadid, and two park rangers walked and drove the length of the trail from Franklin Canyon Park to the survey marker at the summit of the Peak Trail.

1. Plaintiffs' Evidence

a. The Trails

Plaintiffs showed the area surrounding the Hastain and Peak Trails is unimproved and scenic, and has long been used by hikers and others. At trial, Brian Bradshaw, plaintiffs' expert on aerial photography, testified aerial photos taken from 1960 to 1971 showed the trails to be well established. Bradshaw testified, “the main trail is the Hastain Trail which has also been referred to as a fire road.” Paul Edelman, who worked for MRCA, testified MRCA patrolled and maintained the resources inside Franklin Canyon Park, which he described as “world-class.” He characterized the Hastain Trail as one of the park's main trails. Although the summit (with its survey marker) was on private land (and not on the park map), Edelman believed it was a key resource because it allowed for a longer hike to a higher elevation with a good view. MRCA's rangers patrolled the trails, and MRCA felt obligated to protect the summit, which hikers had long visited. Edelman had been on all parts of the trails at various times, including in the fall of 1972, and remembered yellow posts at the Hastain Trail trailhead connected by a chain or cable to keep cars out. He thought the barrier had been installed by the fire department and indicated the trail was a public fire road. In 2011, he became aware that Hadid had fenced off the trail.

b. Hastain Trail Legacy Hikers

Plaintiffs identified the prescriptive time frame as March 1967 to March 1972, during which the Hastain Trail was used by seven legacy hikers who testified at trial: James Goller, Larry Harrow, Joan Carl, Frederic Harris, Carole Hemingway, Cynthia Foran, and Richard Saul.²

Goller testified he hiked the Hastain Trail on Sundays approximately 40 times per year from 1967 (and prior), when he was 10 years old, to 1972 (and beyond), at first with his father, then six times with his 12–member cub scout den, and later, as a teenager, with friends.

Harrow hiked the trail from approximately 1963 to recently. During the prescriptive period, he hiked the trail approximately every other weekend in 1967 and 1968, and from 1970 to 1972, sometimes with friends and sometimes by himself.

Carl, a sculptor, testified she hiked the trail with her dog in the mornings or late afternoons from October to April beginning...