## Facts

- Roland D. Glenn owned a 22.681-acre triangular parcel in Rockport, Massachusetts, with frontage on Thatcher Road, a public street.
- A private way known as “Gravel Road” ran from Thatcher Road across Glenn’s land to property owned by Orren S. Poole and other Poole family members.
- The Poole family used Gravel Road for access to their land for more than seventy years, including hauling wood (initially by horse-drawn wagon), later using trucks, hauling gravel from a gravel pit, and transporting construction and snow-plowing equipment.
- Over time, the Pooles maintained and improved the road by adding gravel, installing drainage, and widening/rounding the entrance area to improve safety.
- Glenn acquired part of the servient land in 1951 and testified he never granted permission for the Pooles’ use of Gravel Road.
- In 1972, the Pooles obtained a zoning variance to operate a garage and repair shop on their land, after which traffic over Gravel Road increased markedly.
- Glenn filed a Land Court registration proceeding seeking to register title and eliminate roads shown on the plan or, alternatively, to limit the Pooles’ use as an overburdening of any easement.
- The Land Court found a prescriptive right of way and concluded that, although use increased after 1972, it remained moderate and consistent with prior use; Glenn appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the Pooles’ intensified use of Gravel Road after obtaining a 1972 zoning variance for a garage and repair shop overburdened the scope of their prescriptive easement.
2. Whether maintenance and safety-related improvements to the roadway exceeded the implied rights incident to the prescriptive easement.

## Decision

- The Massachusetts Appeals Court affirmed the Land Court’s judgment.
- The court held the Pooles had acquired a prescriptive right of way over Gravel Road through long, open, notorious, continuous, and adverse use.
- The court held the post-1972 increase in traffic did not overburden the easement because it remained consistent with the general pattern of historical use.
- The court accepted the Land Court’s findings that the increased use was moderate and that the limits of permissible intensification had been approached but not exceeded.
- The court treated the Pooles’ roadway maintenance and safety improvements as permissible incidents of the easement.

## Legal Principles

- A right of way may be acquired by prescription through at least twenty years of uninterrupted, open, notorious, and adverse use.
- The extent of a prescriptive easement is determined by the use through which it was created, but the scope is not fixed permanently; later use may evolve to meet new needs.
- Changes in use are permissible if not substantial and if consistent with the general pattern formed during the prescriptive period; a fundamental change in the character of use is not permitted.
- Once an easement exists, rights reasonably necessary for its enjoyment are implied, including ordinary maintenance and reasonable improvements facilitating safe and effective use.
- Appellate review of Land Court factfinding in registration matters is deferential; findings are sustained if supported by evidence and reasonable inferences.

## Conclusion

The court upheld a prescriptive right of way and ruled that increased traffic tied to later commercial activity did not overburden the easement where the intensified use remained within the historic pattern of commercial vehicular travel and the related roadway improvements were reasonably necessary incidents of the easement.


Glenn v. Poole, 423 N.E.2d 1030 (Mass. App. Ct. 1981)