## Facts

- The dispute concerned a mountainous tract in Costilla County, Colorado (the “Taylor Ranch”), once within the Sangre de Cristo land grant originally made under Mexican sovereignty.
- In the 1850s, settlers were recruited to establish communities on and near the grant; evidence described customary communal access to mountain resources for pasture and wood.
- For more than a century, local landowners (successors to the original settlers) used the mountain tract to graze livestock and collect firewood and timber.
- In 1960, the then-owner fenced the property and excluded the local users, triggering long-running litigation.
- The current owners’ chain of title included deed language acknowledging local claims “by prescription or otherwise” to pasture, wood, lumber, and “settlement rights.”
- After remand from an earlier appellate decision rejecting federal preclusion, a bench trial resulted in judgment for the ranch owners, finding no enforceable rights; the court of appeals affirmed.
- The Colorado Supreme Court granted further review to resolve whether Colorado property law recognized enforceable rights based on the history of use, documentary references, and reliance.

## Issues

1. Whether successors to the original settlers held legally enforceable rights to access and use the Taylor Ranch for grazing livestock and collecting firewood and timber.
2. Whether Colorado common law recognized those rights as a prescriptive easement, easement by estoppel, and/or easement implied from prior use, given the long history of use and evidence of reliance and intent.
3. Whether evidence of Mexican-era land-grant practices and community norms could be considered as context for determining intent, expectations, and necessity under Colorado servitudes law.
4. Whether the claimed uses extended to hunting, fishing, or general recreation.

## Decision

- The Colorado Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals and the trial court.
- The Court held that qualifying local landowners possessed enforceable rights of access to the Taylor Ranch for grazing livestock and collecting firewood and timber.
- The Court recognized these rights under three servitudes theories: prescriptive easement, easement by estoppel, and easement implied from prior use.
- The Court rejected claimed rights for hunting, fishing, and general recreation on the record presented.
- The Court remanded for implementation and retained jurisdiction to address identification of the right-holding landowners and administration of the rights; a subsequent remedial opinion supplied procedures for defining and managing the class of beneficiaries.

## Legal Principles

- Longstanding, open, and continuous use of another’s land can support recognition of a prescriptive easement when the elements of prescription are proven.
- An easement by estoppel may arise where an owner’s words or conduct create a reasonable expectation of use and the claimant materially relies on that expectation.
- An easement implied from prior use may be recognized when prior common ownership is shown and the historic use was apparent, continuous, and reasonably necessary to enjoyment of the benefited property.
- Historical documents and title references acknowledging “settlement rights” and similar claims may corroborate intent and expectations relevant to implied and equitable servitude doctrines.
- Evidence of antecedent land-grant practices and community norms may inform intent, reliance, and necessity, even when the governing rule of decision is state common law.
- The scope of any easement is limited to uses established by the evidentiary record and the doctrinal basis for recognition; courts may deny additional uses not sufficiently proven.

## Conclusion

The Colorado Supreme Court recognized appurtenant easement rights for qualifying successor landowners to graze livestock and collect firewood and timber on the Taylor Ranch under prescriptive, estoppel, and implied-from-prior-use theories, while denying claimed recreational uses and supervising a remedial process to identify and administer the class of right-holders.


Lobato v. Taylor, 71 P.3d 938 (Colo. 2002)