## Facts

- The disputed tract was a “school section” owned by the State of Nebraska and administered through the Nebraska Board of Educational Lands and Funds (NBEL&F).
- Suren George Nazarian, Jr., and Ellen Yvonne Nazarian (as cotrustees of the 12/20 Trust) rented the school land from NBEL&F from January 1, 1982, until they bought it.
- The Nazarian trustees purchased the school section from NBEL&F by quitclaim deed dated September 24, 1990, converting the tract from state ownership to private ownership.
- Kiowa Creek Land & Cattle Co., Inc. owned ranch land immediately west of the school section.
- Kiowa had regularly traveled across the school section for many years before 1990 as a means of access.
- For purposes of the appeal, the court assumed Kiowa’s travel across the tract was open, continuous, and adverse for long enough that it would have established a prescriptive easement if the tract had been privately owned during that time.
- On March 30, 1994—less than 10 years after the 1990 conveyance—Kiowa filed a declaratory judgment action seeking a declaration that it held an easement of access by prescription across the Nazarian trustees’ land.
- The Nazarian trustees moved for summary judgment and dismissal, arguing that Kiowa could not count any pre-1990 use because the statute of limitations does not run against the State.

## Issues

1. Whether Kiowa could establish a prescriptive easement by counting, or tacking, its alleged adverse use of the route during the period when the State of Nebraska owned the land to the period after the land was deeded to the Nazarian trustees in 1990.
2. Whether summary judgment dismissing Kiowa’s declaratory judgment action was proper where the land had been in private ownership for less than the 10-year prescriptive period when suit was filed.

## Decision

- The Nebraska Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s summary judgment of dismissal in favor of the Nazarian trustees.
- Because the statute of limitations does not run against the State of Nebraska, no prescriptive easement could arise while the State held title to the school land.
- Kiowa could not tack time accruing during state ownership to time after the 1990 conveyance to satisfy Nebraska’s 10-year prescriptive period.
- Since the tract had been privately owned for less than 10 years when Kiowa sued in 1994, Kiowa’s prescriptive-easement claim failed as a matter of law.

## Legal Principles

- A prescriptive easement requires adverse use for the full limitations period; the doctrine depends on the running of the statute of limitations.
- Statutes of limitation do not run against the State of Nebraska; therefore, prescriptive rights cannot mature against state-owned land, including state school lands.
- When land is conveyed from the State to a private owner, the prescriptive period begins no earlier than the date of private ownership; earlier adverse use during state ownership cannot be added to later private-ownership time to reach the required period.
- Summary judgment is appropriate when the relevant dates are undisputed and, given the State’s immunity from limitations, the claim cannot meet the required prescriptive period.

## Conclusion

Kiowa could not obtain a prescriptive easement across the Nazarian trustees’ former school land because Nebraska law does not allow prescriptive rights to accrue against the State, and time during state ownership cannot be counted toward the 10-year period after the land is sold; with less than 10 years of private ownership before the 1994 suit, summary judgment dismissing the action was properly affirmed.


Kiowa Creek Land & Cattle Co. v. Nazarian, 554 N.W.2d 175 (1996)