25/ “YOU MUST PROVE YOUR EASEMENTS”: A person can continue to cross another person’s land if they have established, registered and maintained their legal right with an easement. In this case, many families had worked out easements 100 years ago to cross other people’s land from their own property to White Bear Lake for swimming and boating purposes.
Laurie and Anthony Sampair bought the lake shore property in 2007 and sought to extinguish dozens of easements which had been registered 100 years earlier. The Sampairs won default judgments against most people who had stopped using their easements many years earlier or did not want to pay to defend their right to lake access.
Fifteen parties did defend their easements. They lost on a summary judgment in the district court and the Court of Appeals.
Chief Justice Gildea wrote for the Supreme Court in reviewing the 15 appeals. Twelve parties lost even though they had 100-year-old deeds for their easements because they had neither registered their easements between 1947-49 or provided any evidence that they had used the easements to any degree in the next 40 years.
Chief Justice Gildea the found that, although the three remaining appellants had not filed the registration of their easements in 1947-49, they had provided some evidence that they had used the easements for the past 60 years to the point where the Sampairs and their predecessor owners may have had adequate notice that would make a “prudent person” aware of the possible existence of the easements.
The Supreme Court ordered the district court to assess the three parties’ evidence on whether their use of the easements in the prior 60 years was enough to provide a prudent buyer with notice of the possibility of an easement.
READ THE FULL CASE DECISION:
READ THE FULL CASE DECISION:
/ In the Matter of the Application of Anthony E. Sampair and
Laurie K. Sampair to register the title.
July
8, 2010 2010-082
https://mn.gov/law-library-stat/archive/supct/1007/OPA081494-0708.pdf
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