## Facts

- The Bushnells owned a residential lot adjoining the lot later purchased by Artis.
- Shortly after buying their property, the Bushnells installed a chain-link fence where they believed the boundary line was located.
- The fence was not on the true boundary; it was placed about 12 feet inside the Bushnells’ property.
- After Artis bought the neighboring lot, she treated the fence as the boundary, maintained her property up to the fence line, and built a house on her lot.
- About two years after the house was completed, the Bushnells learned that the fence was misplaced and that Artis’s house encroached onto their land.
- A boundary dispute followed, and the Bushnells sued to establish the boundary and to obtain relief for the encroachment.
- The trial court found that the disputed strip belonged to the Bushnells and that Artis’s house encroached approximately three feet onto the Bushnells’ property.
- The trial court also found Artis acted in good faith when she built, relying on the fence as the apparent boundary, and found the Bushnells did not complain for about two years after construction.
- Instead of ordering removal of the encroaching portion of the house, the trial court allowed the house to remain and granted Artis a predial servitude described as a straight line located three feet into the Bushnells’ property from the edge of Artis’s roof line.
- The trial court awarded the Bushnells $1,500 as compensation for the servitude, and the Bushnells appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court could allow a good-faith residential encroachment to remain by granting the builder a predial servitude over the encroached strip rather than ordering removal.
2. Whether the trial court erred in fixing compensation for the servitude at $1,500.
3. Whether the trial court erred in denying the Bushnells additional relief beyond recognition of ownership and the $1,500 award.

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed the judgment.
- The court upheld the trial court’s determination that Artis was a good-faith builder who relied on an existing fence placed by the Bushnells.
- The court upheld the remedy permitting the house to remain subject to a predial servitude over the three-foot encroachment area defined from the roof line.
- The court found no basis to disturb the $1,500 compensation award.
- The court affirmed the denial of additional damages or other relief.

## Legal Principles

- A court may grant relief that protects the record owner’s title while addressing a minor encroachment created by a good-faith builder who reasonably relied on an apparent boundary.
- A predial servitude can be used to regularize a limited encroachment by granting a narrow real right over the affected strip while leaving ownership in the record owner.
- The conduct of the record owner—including placing an erroneous fence that appears to mark the boundary and delaying objection to visible construction—may support a remedy short of demolition.
- The existence of good faith and the amount of compensation for a servitude are fact-driven determinations; appellate review generally does not reweigh those findings absent clear error.

## Conclusion

In Bushnell v. Artis, the Louisiana Court of Appeal affirmed a judgment recognizing the Bushnells’ ownership of the disputed land while permitting Artis’s good-faith, three-foot encroachment to remain through a predial servitude measured from the roof line and compensated by a $1,500 award, with no further damages or removal ordered.


Bushnell v. Artis, 445 So. 2d 152 (1984)