## Facts

- Charles Tolmas, Inc. (in liquidation) and Calvin P. Lee (through successors) owned adjoining parcels on Metairie Road in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana.
- A triangular area immediately west of Lee’s building lay within Tolmas’s record title, a fact stipulated by the parties.
- In 1951, Lee constructed a building near the boundary and operated a dry-cleaning business there for decades; the triangular area was used as a parking area for customers and employees from the building’s completion onward.
- A stipulated survey depicted the triangular tract and a signpost base about four feet from Lee’s building; the signpost for “Lee’s Cleaners” was set in cement when the building was constructed.
- Witnesses testified the Lee family maintained the triangular area (e.g., cutting grass, removing trash) and sometimes roped it off for their exclusive use during parades.
- In the late 1980s, a Tolmas family member contacted the Lee family about the use of the area.
- In 1998, Tolmas filed a declaratory action seeking a judgment that Lee had no ownership or rights in the triangle, a determination of the boundary line, and removal of alleged encroachments.
- Tolmas acknowledged noticing parking on the triangle but claimed he did not object to remain neighborly.

## Issues

1. Whether Lee acquired ownership of the disputed triangular tract by thirty-year acquisitive prescription despite Tolmas’s record title and the absence of a fence or continuous enclosure.
2. Whether Lee’s acts (parking use, maintenance, signage, and occasional roping off) constituted continuous, uninterrupted, peaceable, public, and unequivocal corporeal possession as owner for the prescriptive period.

## Decision

- The trial court ruled for Lee, finding acquisition of the triangular tract by thirty-year acquisitive prescription.
- The Louisiana Fifth Circuit affirmed the judgment as amended, sustaining Lee’s acquisitive prescription to the entire triangular parcel shown on the stipulated survey.
- The court rejected Tolmas’s argument that lack of permanent enclosure defeated prescription, holding the proven acts of dominion were sufficient given the property’s character.

## Legal Principles

- Thirty-year acquisitive prescription of immovable property requires continuous, uninterrupted, peaceable, public, and unequivocal possession for 30 years; neither title nor good faith is required.
- Possession requires both physical control (corpus) and intent to possess as owner (animus).
- For open or unfenced land, possession may be proven by acts of dominion consistent with how an owner of similar property would use it, so long as the acts are sufficiently open and obvious to place the record owner on notice.
- A fence or complete enclosure is not an absolute requirement; the sufficiency of possession is evaluated relative to the nature and typical use of the property.
- Longstanding commercial parking use, maintenance, and permanent signage can evidence possession as owner and support prescription over the entire area actually possessed.

## Conclusion

The court held that decades of visible commercial parking use, maintenance, and signage established Lee’s continuous, public, and unequivocal possession of an unfenced triangular tract for more than 30 years, resulting in ownership by thirty-year acquisitive prescription notwithstanding Tolmas’s record title.


Charles Tolmas, Inc. v. Lee, 903 So. 2d 661 (La. Ct. App. 5th Cir. 2005)