## Facts

- Defendants owned the Obed Heights Reservoir in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, a nonnavigable artificial body of water created in 1890 by a dam, along with the land under the reservoir.
- Plaintiffs owned residential lots in a subdivision approved in 1974 that abutted the reservoir; the exact boundary between the reservoir and the lots, and ownership of the shoreline strip, was disputed.
- From the late 1970s forward, plaintiffs and their predecessors used the reservoir openly for noncommercial recreation, including boating, swimming, fishing, and winter skating.
- Plaintiffs’ use was visible and involved physical changes and regular access from their lots, including creating a sandy beach.
- Defendants asserted exclusive control and intermittently posted “No Trespassing” signs, sent letters, and complained about use, but plaintiffs continued using the reservoir.
- At trial, defendants relied on a boundary expert; plaintiffs relied on subdivision mapping and other evidence to show their lots extended to the water’s edge, and alternatively claimed adverse possession of any disputed strip.

## Issues

1. Whether Connecticut law permits an abutting landowner to acquire a prescriptive easement for recreational use over a nonnavigable, artificial body of water.
2. Whether the evidence supported findings of open, visible, continuous, and adverse use under a claim of right for the statutory period.
3. Whether excluding defendants’ expert testimony about dam maintenance costs and the asserted burden of the easement was reversible error.
4. Whether the trial court clearly erred in rejecting defendants’ boundary evidence and finding plaintiffs had record title or adverse possession to the disputed shoreline strip.
5. Whether defendants’ trespass counterclaim could succeed in light of the easement and boundary/title findings.

## Decision

- The Connecticut Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment for the plaintiffs.
- The court held that a prescriptive easement may be acquired for noncommercial recreational use over a nonnavigable, artificial body of water.
- The court concluded the record supported the trial court’s findings that plaintiffs’ use was open, visible, continuous, and adverse for at least fifteen years.
- The court found no reversible evidentiary error in excluding or limiting expert testimony on dam maintenance costs and in the trial court’s treatment of boundary-expert testimony.
- The court upheld the trial court’s determination that plaintiffs either held record title or acquired title by adverse possession to the disputed land to the reservoir’s edge, and therefore the trespass counterclaim failed.

## Legal Principles

- Prescriptive easements in Connecticut require proof of open, visible, continuous, and adverse use, under a claim of right, for at least fifteen years.
- Nonnavigable artificial water bodies may be treated like land for prescriptive-easement purposes; there is no categorical bar to a recreational prescriptive easement over such waters.
- Sporadic objections (e.g., intermittent signs, letters, complaints) do not defeat prescription if they do not effectively interrupt the claimant’s open and adverse use during the statutory period.
- The existence of a prescriptive easement is determined by satisfaction of the prescriptive elements; asserted maintenance-cost burdens on the servient estate do not negate acquisition when the easement’s scope is limited to the proven use.
- Boundary and adverse-possession determinations are fact-intensive; appellate review generally defers to trial-court findings absent clear error, and title findings can independently defeat a trespass claim.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed that long-term, open, and adverse noncommercial recreational use by abutting owners can create a prescriptive easement over a nonnavigable artificial reservoir, and it upheld related findings on shoreline title/adverse possession and the rejection of the servient owners’ trespass claim and evidentiary objections.


Frech v. Piontkowski, 296 Conn. 43, 994 A.2d 84 (Conn. 2010)