Butterfly Realty v. James Romanella & Sons, Inc.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island
93 A.3d 1022 (2014)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

Use of land by express or implied permission, no matter how long continued, cannot ripen into a prescriptive easement because the essential element of hostile use is lacking. Permission may be inferred from circumstances of neighborly accommodation and cooperation, thereby defeating a claim of hostility.

Facts:

Butterfly Realty and JR & Sons, Inc. own adjacent commercial properties.
Butterfly's building has a loading dock that is inaccessible without crossing onto JR & Sons's property.
In 1985, JR & Sons granted Butterfly an express, recorded easement for ingress and egress to the loading dock, but the easement explicitly prohibited use by 'semitrailers'.
From 1985 to 2010, various tenants of Butterfly received deliveries from trucks, including semitrailers, that regularly drove over JR & Sons's property far outside the boundaries of the express easement.
Charles Sposato, a part-owner of JR & Sons, was aware of the trucks' use and believed Butterfly should pay for it, but he never objected or demanded payment.
Sposato explained he did not forbid the use because he 'just wanted to be a good neighbor,' and on occasion, he moved his own car to accommodate the delivery trucks.
In May 2010, after a delivery truck damaged JR & Sons's property, JR & Sons surveyed the land to identify the easement's boundaries.
Following the survey, JR & Sons installed concrete pylons along the easement's boundary, which made it nearly impossible for delivery trucks to access Butterfly's loading dock.

Procedural Posture:

On June 14, 2010, Butterfly Realty sued JR & Sons in Washington County Superior Court (a state trial court), seeking a prescriptive easement.
JR & Sons filed a counterclaim for a permanent injunction.
After a bench trial, the trial justice denied Butterfly's claim on March 18, 2011.
Butterfly appealed to the Rhode Island Supreme Court (the state's highest court).
In 2012, in a decision known as Butterfly I, the Supreme Court vacated the judgment and remanded the case, holding that the trial justice had applied an incorrect legal standard for 'hostility'.
On remand, the trial justice, without taking new evidence, again denied the claim for a prescriptive easement on November 9, 2012, finding the use was permissive.
Butterfly Realty and Dairyland, Inc. (appellants) appealed that decision to the Rhode Island Supreme Court, with JR & Sons, Inc. as the appellee.

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Issue:

Does the use of a landowner's property by a neighbor's delivery trucks, which exceeds the scope of an express easement, constitute hostile use sufficient to establish a prescriptive easement when the landowner tolerates the use and takes minor accommodative actions for over 25 years out of a desire to be a 'good neighbor'?

Opinions:

Majority - Justice Indeglia

No, the use does not constitute hostile use sufficient to establish a prescriptive easement. Use by express or implied permission cannot ripen into a prescriptive easement, and the trial court reasonably inferred that the use in this case was permissive. To establish hostility, a claimant must show use 'without permission asked or given.' Here, the landowner's behavior went beyond mere silent acquiescence; the owner, Mr. Sposato, testified he wanted to be a 'good neighbor,' he moved his car to accommodate trucks, and he begrudgingly allowed the use to continue for 25 years based on a belief that a prior oral agreement existed. These actions support an inference of permissive use based on neighborly cooperation and accommodation, which defeats the element of hostility required for a prescriptive easement. The law disfavors prescriptive rights, and the claimant bears a high burden of proving each element by clear and convincing evidence, which Butterfly failed to do.

Dissenting - Justice Goldberg

Yes, the use was hostile and sufficient to establish a prescriptive easement. The use was adverse from the beginning, as it violated the express easement's prohibition on semitrailers and went beyond its geographical boundaries. For a landowner facing such open and long-continued use, 'mere acquiescence or silence' is not permission; the owner must 'affirmatively communicate either objection or permission' to stop the prescriptive period. The evidence shows JR & Sons did neither for over 25 years. The majority misinterprets minor actions like moving a car as an affirmative grant of permission, when in fact the landowner's owners were ignorant of the easement and always believed Butterfly should be paying rent, which is not a 'neighborly' attitude. Butterfly met its burden of showing hostile use, and the trial justice's finding of implied permission is not supported by the evidence.

Analysis:

This decision reinforces the high evidentiary burden on claimants seeking a prescriptive easement and illustrates the judiciary's disfavor for such claims. It clarifies that 'hostility' can be negated by implied permission inferred from a long history of neighborly accommodation, even if the accommodation is reluctant. The ruling protects landowners who choose to tolerate a neighbor's encroachment rather than escalate a dispute, preventing their 'good neighbor' behavior from resulting in a forfeiture of property rights. For future litigants, this case increases the difficulty of proving hostile use where any evidence of cooperation or passive allowance by the landowner exists.

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