Issue

Easement—claim by owner of dominant tenement—hostile possession—summary judgment

Summary

In a property dispute between neighbors, where a husband and wife (defendants) owned adjoining tracts of land, the first of which contained defendants' home and the second of which benefited from a 30-foot-wide easement containing a driveway and a strip of land east of the driveway leading up to plaintiffs' property, the trial court erred in denying summary judgment to defendants on their claim for adverse possession of the land between the driveway and plaintiffs' property line. Defendants' forecast of evidence–considered in the light most favorable to defendants–created a genuine issue of material fact concerning the hostility element of their adverse possession claim, with the evidence showing that: defendants mistakenly believed that they owned the disputed land; defendants made permanent improvements on the land that went beyond what the easement allowed, thereby rebutting the presumption of permissive use; and, although none of plaintiffs' predecessors in interest ever objected to defendants' use or improvement of the disputed tract, their silence did not amount to a grant of permission for such use or improvement.

Summary from the North Carolina Reports digest (official subject index). Read the opinion →