Smith v. Muellner

• Decision Date: 14 August 2007
• Docket Number: No. 17700.,17700.
• Citation: 932 A.2d 382,283 Conn. 510
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Peter W. SMITH v. Colleen A. MUELLNER et al.

932 A.2d 382

283 Conn. 510

Peter W. SMITH v. Colleen A. MUELLNER et al.

No. 17700.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued May 18, 2007.

Decided August 14, 2007.

Glenn E. Knierim, Jr., Avon, for the appellants (named defendant et al.).

R. Bartley Halloran, Farmington, for the appellee (plaintiff).

ROGERS, C.J., and BORDEN, PALMER, VERTEFEUILLE and ZARELLA, Js.

ROGERS, C.J.

This appeal raises issues concerning the acquisition and extinguishment of easement rights. The defendants, Colleen A. Muellner and Robert Muellner,¹ appeal from the judgment of the trial court quieting title to certain real property owned by the plaintiff, Peter W. Smith.² The defendants claim that the court: (1) improperly concluded that a deeded right-of-way they possessed over the plaintiff's property had been extinguished through the plaintiff's adverse use of the right-of-way; (2) improperly concluded that their predecessors in title had abandoned the right-of-way; (3) made an erroneous factual finding when rejecting their claim that they had acquired via prescription additional easement rights over a different portion of the plaintiff's property; and (4) applied the wrong burden of proof to their prescriptive easement claim. We agree with the defendants' first two claims in regard to the deeded right-of-way but are unpersuaded by the remaining claims relating to the alleged prescriptive easement. Accordingly, we affirm in part and reverse in part the judgment of the trial court.³

The following facts were found by the court or are not disputed. The parties are next door neighbors on Seaside Avenue in the town of Westbrook. Both parties' properties are bordered on the south by Seaside Avenue, and both parties' houses are located on the southern portions of their lots. The boundary between the properties runs generally north and south. The plaintiff's property is to the east of the defendants' property. To the east of the plaintiff's property is Pent Road, which runs north off of Seaside Avenue.

The deeds to the parties' properties indicate that the defendants' property is benefited, and the plaintiff's property is burdened, by an express right-of-way running over the northernmost five feet of the plaintiff's property between the northeast corner of the defendants' property and Pent Road.⁴ Another right-of-way benefiting the defendants' property exists over the southernmost five feet of a neighbor's property to the north of the plaintiff's property. Together the two adjacent right-of-ways comprise a ten foot passageway between the defendants' backyard and Pent Road.⁵

The defendants' backyard is accessible via their driveway, which is located on the eastern side of their property along the common boundary with the plaintiff's property. The driveway runs north and south, leading from Seaside Avenue to the rear of the defendants' property. The driveway is narrow because the distance between the defendants' house and the common boundary is only 8.3 feet.

The plaintiff acquired his property in 1972. His parents owned the property previously, from 1951 to 1972. The defendants purchased their property in 1994 from their predecessors in title, Robert Schulz and Barbara Schulz (collectively, Schulzes), who owned the property from 1978 to 1994. During their period of ownership, the Schulzes never used the deeded right-of-way. Instead, they typically accessed their property by using their driveway.

In 2002, disagreements between the parties arose in regard to the defendants' right to utilize the deeded right-of-way and, in addition, their encroachment on the plaintiff's property in the use of their driveway. The plaintiff started preventing the defendants from driving vehicles over a different portion of his property, south of the right-of-way, an action he previously had allowed while the defendants were renovating their house and which the defendants had continued following completion of the renovations. The plaintiff also had the border area surveyed and erected a wooden fence along the common boundary. The fence, together with the proximity of the defendants' house to the boundary, prevented the defendants from entering or exiting their vehicles when they were parked on the southernmost portion of their driveway and made navigation of the driveway more difficult.

In May, 2003, the defendants, by a letter from their counsel, informed the plaintiff that they intended to enter and clear the deeded right-of-way so that they could use it for vehicular access to their property. They proposed to remove vegetation, grade the surface, install appropriate surface material such as crushed stone and maintain the area as prepared into the future.

Thereafter, the plaintiff filed this action claiming that his property no longer was subject to the deeded right-of-way and requesting that the court quiet title accordingly. See General Statutes § 47-31. He also sought to enjoin the defendants, both temporarily and permanently, from entering his property and preparing the right-of-way for use. According to the plaintiff, the right-of-way had been extinguished, both through his adverse use⁶ of the easement area and its abandonment by the defendants and the Schulzes.

The defendants denied the plaintiff's allegations as to extinguishment of the deeded right-of-way, raised a number of special defenses, brought a multicount counterclaim and responded with their own request for injunctive relief. Specifically, they asked that the plaintiff be prohibited from further obstructing the right-of-way and interfering with their use of it.

The defendants also requested that the plaintiff be required to remove the fence along the defendants' driveway, which marks the boundary line between the two properties. In the third and fourth counts of the counterclaim, the defendants alleged that they had acquired by prescription the right to use a portion of the plaintiff's property as part of their driveway, and they argued that the fence was an obstruction to their use of that easement. The claimed easement area was along the western boundary of the plaintiff's property, adjacent to the defendants' driveway, and measured approximately 3.7 feet in width and sixty feet in length.

Following a preliminary injunction hearing, the court, Silbert, J., denied both parties' requests for injunctive relief as to the deeded right-of-way, leaving the status quo in place. The court granted the defendants' request insofar as it sought removal of the plaintiff's fence.

The case was then tried before the court, Aurigemma, J. The court concluded that the deeded right-of-way across the plaintiff's property had been extinguished, both by the plaintiff's adverse use of the easement area and by the Schulzes' abandonment of the way. It held further that the defendants had failed to prove the elements necessary to acquire a prescriptive easement in the common boundary area. This appeal followed. Additional facts will be provided where relevant to the claims raised.

I

The defendants first claim that the court improperly concluded that the deeded right-of-way had been extinguished on the basis of the plaintiff's adverse use because the manner in which the plaintiff had used the way was insufficiently adverse to the defendants' easement rights. We agree.

The question of whether the elements necessary to establish adverse use have been proven in a particular case is a factual one for the trier; Robert S. Weiss & Co. v. Mullins, 196 Conn. 614, 618, 495 A.2d 1006 (1985); Public Storage, Inc. v. Eliot Street Ltd. Partnership, 20 Conn. App. 380, 381, 567 A.2d 389 (1989); subject to the clearly erroneous standard of review. Seymour v. Region One Board of Education, 274 Conn. 92, 104, 874 A.2d 742, cert. denied, 546 U.S. 1016, 126 S.Ct. 659, 163 L.Ed.2d 526 (2005). We will not disturb the court's conclusion that an easement has been extinguished by adverse use unless the underlying facts found lack evidentiary support; see id.; or do not legally and logically support that conclusion. See American Brass Co. v. Serra, 104 Conn. 139, 147, 132 A. 565 (1926); see also Schroeder v. Taylor, 104 Conn. 596, 606, 134 A. 63 (1926); Public Storage, Inc. v. Eliot Street Ltd. Partnership, supra, at 381, 567 A.2d 389.

Although the law does not favor termination of property rights, a deeded easement may be extinguished by "acts of the owner of the servient tract, showing an intent to obstruct the dominant owner's enjoyment of the easement." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) American Brass Co. v. Serra, supra, 104 Conn. at 146, 132 A. 565. "[I]f the servient owner should by adverse acts lasting through the prescriptive period obstruct the dominant owner's enjoyment, intending to deprive him of the easement, he may by prescription acquire the right to use his own land free from the easement." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id. To prove that an easement has been extinguished by prescription, the owner of a servient tract must show that he, "by adverse use of a notorious, exclusive and hostile character, obstructed and excluded the owners of the dominant tract so as to form a basis for an inference of a grant, releasing the easement, by an owner of the dominant tract to the owner of the servient tract." Id., at 150, 132 A. 565; see also Schroeder v. Taylor, supra, 104 Conn. at 605, 134 A. 63. In Connecticut, such adverse use, to effect extinguishment, must persist continuously for a period of fifteen years. See General Statutes § 47-37.

Although the acts necessary to extinguish an easement by prescription are described in the law similarly to those necessary to acquire an easement by prescription, extinguishment and acquisition differ fundamentally such that a given act may be considered adverse for purposes of acquiring an easement, but not adverse for purposes of extinguishing one. Specifically, a party attempting to acquire an easement by prescription generally has no ownership rights in the land in...