## Facts

- Robert and Dorothy Cordwell owned approximately 320 acres in Kootenai County, Idaho, in Little Baldy Creek Canyon.
- A public county road (Latour Creek road) crossed a northern corner of the Cordwell property and provided the Cordwells access to their land.
- Three primitive one-lane logging roads—known as the Nordstrom, Ladd, and Mack roads—converged on the Cordwell property near the Latour Creek county road; the roads originated as log-haul roads beginning around 1930.
- Neighboring landowners with small parcels south and east of the Cordwell property claimed rights to use these roads across the Cordwell land for access from the county road to their parcels.
- The neighboring owners asserted (a) the Nordstrom road had become a public road by long public use and expenditure of public funds for maintenance, and (b) they held implied easements across the Cordwell property (by prior use and/or by necessity).
- Evidence showed an alternate access route existed from Kingston via public roads to the French Gulch area and then by the Nordstrom logging road descending toward the Cordwell property (the French Gulch route), though it was more circuitous and primitive.
- The Cordwells filed an action to quiet title to exclude others’ claimed road rights; the trial court largely ruled for the Cordwells, rejecting the public-road and implied-easement claims.
- After trial, the neighboring owners sought to have the judge view the alternate access route and to reopen the case to add evidence of the cost to improve and maintain the alternate route for year-round travel; the trial court denied both requests.

## Issues

1. Whether a public roadway was established across the Cordwell property by prior public use and public maintenance expenditures.
2. Whether the neighboring owners acquired implied easements across the Cordwell property based on (a) prior apparent and continuous use at severance or (b) necessity.
3. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by refusing to view the alternate access route and by refusing to reopen the trial to admit additional cost evidence.

## Decision

- The Idaho Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment quieting title in favor of the Cordwells.
- The court held the Nordstrom road was not shown to be a public road across the Cordwell property.
- The court held the neighboring owners failed to prove implied easements by prior use or by necessity.
- The court held the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying a view of the premises and refusing to reopen the evidentiary record.

## Legal Principles

- A public road over private land requires proof of general, continuous public use and substantial public maintenance/acceptance; sporadic or limited public involvement is insufficient.
- An implied easement from prior use requires unity of title and, at severance, an apparent and continuous use that is reasonably necessary and intended to continue; permissive logging-road use does not, by itself, establish these elements.
- An easement by necessity requires necessity rather than mere inconvenience; the existence of another lawful route of access, even if longer, primitive, or costly to improve, defeats the claim.
- Decisions to view premises and to reopen a trial for additional evidence are committed to the trial court’s discretion and are reversed only for abuse of discretion.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed quiet title for the landowners, rejecting claims that logging roads across their land had become public or were subject to implied easements, and holding that an available alternate access route—despite inconvenience and improvement costs—defeated any asserted necessity while the trial court’s post-trial evidentiary rulings were within its discretion.


Cordwell v. Smith, 105 Idaho 71 (Idaho Ct. App. 1983)