## Facts

- Community Feed Store, Inc. operated a feed mill with loading areas on the north and south sides of its principal building.
- A roughly 60-by-90-foot gravel area immediately north of the mill functioned as a turning and backing area for supplier trucks and customer vehicles.
- The feed store owned only the southern 28 feet of the gravel area; the remaining portion was owned by Northeastern Culvert Corp.
- The feed store and its predecessors used the full gravel area for vehicle maneuvering continuously from at least the late 1920s until 1984.
- Northeastern acquired its parcel in 1956 and, after a 1984 survey revealed it owned most of the gravel area, erected a barrier along the surveyed line to stop the feed store’s use.
- The barrier prevented continued turning and backing by vehicles serving the mill on the portion of the gravel area owned by Northeastern.

## Issues

1. Whether the feed store proved a prescriptive easement with sufficient certainty as to the location and dimensions of the claimed easement area.
2. Whether the feed store’s long-term use of the gravel area was adverse rather than permissive, as required for a prescriptive easement.

## Decision

- The Vermont Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s judgment for Northeastern and recognized a prescriptive easement in favor of the feed store.
- The court held the evidence adequately identified the easement area as the defined gravel rectangle north of the mill used for turning and backing vehicles.
- The court held the long, open, continuous use was presumed adverse, and Northeastern did not rebut that presumption by proving permission.
- The court concluded the feed store satisfied the statutory period through continuous use, including tacking of predecessor use, and Northeastern’s ejectment counterclaim failed.

## Legal Principles

- A prescriptive easement in Vermont is established by open, notorious, hostile (adverse), and continuous use for fifteen years, with acquiescence by the servient owner.
- Open and notorious use over time is presumed adverse; the servient landowner bears the burden to show the use was permissive to defeat prescription.
- The scope and location of a prescriptive easement may be defined by the character and extent of the historical use and need not be proven by metes-and-bounds precision if the area is sufficiently identifiable.
- Successive periods of qualifying use may be tacked to satisfy the prescriptive period when there is continuity of use through predecessors in interest.
- A prescriptive easement creates a nonfee interest limited to the established use, distinct from fee title obtained by adverse possession.

## Conclusion

The court held that decades of open, regular use of an identifiable gravel area for turning and backing vehicles established a prescriptive easement, and the landowner’s later objection after a survey did not defeat the easement absent proof that the prior use was permissive.


Community Feed Store, Inc. v. Northeastern Culvert Corp., 151 Vt. 152, 559 A.2d 1068 (Vt. 1989)