## Facts

- Lake Julia was a private, non-navigable lake in Lake County, Indiana, originally owned with surrounding lands by a single family.
- In 1972, Donald and Joyce Carnahan bought a lakefront lot that included a portion of the lakebed and began recreating on the lake (swimming, fishing, skating, and boating).
- From 1973 through 1993, the Carnahans used motorized watercraft on the lake, including a houseboat, ski boat, jet skis, and wave runners.
- Between 1984 and 1987, the Carnahans acquired adjacent parcels that increased their ownership to just over half an acre, about 2.5% of the lakebed.
- In 1991, Moriah Property Owners Association acquired title to Lot 8, comprising about 64–65% of the lakebed and much of the water suitable for operating watercraft.
- Moriah adopted restrictive covenants for Lot 8 that severely limited or effectively prohibited motorized watercraft on the lake.
- The Carnahans claimed a prescriptive easement allowing continued motorized recreational use over the waters above Lot 8 and, effectively, the entire lake.

## Issues

1. Whether the Carnahans’ long-term operation of motorized watercraft over portions of the lakebed owned by others was adverse (rather than permissive) for the prescriptive period.
2. Whether the claimed right to operate motorized watercraft over essentially the entire lake was sufficiently definite in scope to be established by prescription.

## Decision

- The Indiana Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s judgment recognizing a prescriptive easement.
- The court held the Carnahans failed to prove the adversity element because their use fit a pattern of neighborly, tolerated recreational use rather than a hostile claim of right.
- The court concluded the asserted easement was overly broad and insufficiently definite to impose by prescription over the lakebed largely owned by Moriah.
- As a result, Moriah could enforce its restrictive covenants limiting motorized watercraft over Lot 8.

## Legal Principles

- A prescriptive easement requires use that is actual, open and notorious, continuous for the statutory period, and adverse (under a claim of right rather than by permission).
- Longstanding recreational use consistent with neighborly accommodation is treated as permissive and does not satisfy adversity absent conduct that would reasonably notify the owner of a hostile claim.
- A prescriptive easement must be reasonably definite in location and scope; a generalized claim to broad recreational control over another’s property is disfavored.
- Later-imposed restrictions do not convert earlier permissive use into adverse use; adversity must exist during the prescriptive period.

## Conclusion

The court rejected a prescriptive easement for motorized recreation on a private lake where the users’ conduct appeared permissive and cooperative and where the claimed right was too expansive and indefinite to burden the majority lakebed owner.


Carnahan v. Moriah Prop. Owners Ass’n, Inc., 716 N.E.2d 437 (Ind. 1999)