## Facts

- Bel-Air Country Club owned a Los Angeles golf course abutting Lot 35 in Tract 7656; Hilda Weber owned most of Lot 35 and had built a residence there.
- In 1936, Weber sought safer access from Bellagio Road; Bel-Air sought improved pedestrian movement between its fifth green and sixth tee, which were separated by Weber’s frontage.
- Bel-Air conveyed to Weber a long strip of land (about four-fifths of an acre) bordering Bellagio Road and the golf course’s sixth fairway; the strip functioned as part of the fairway rough and received misdirected golf balls daily.
- Bel-Air’s deed to Weber included building restrictions intended to prevent interference with golf-course use of the strip.
- As part of the same exchange, Weber granted Bel-Air a permanent tunnel easement under her land to connect the fifth green and the sixth tee; no money changed hands.
- MacDonald Properties, Inc. and Conrad N. Hilton later succeeded to Weber’s interests and disputed both the enforceability of the 1936 restrictions and Bel-Air’s claimed prescriptive easement over the strip.

## Issues

1. Whether the 1936 deed’s building restrictions remained valid and enforceable against Weber’s successors in interest.
2. Whether Bel-Air acquired a prescriptive easement over the strip based on long-term golf-course-related use.
3. Whether long, open, and unprotested use created a presumption of adversity shifting the burden to the landowner to show permission.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed summary judgment for Bel-Air.
- The building restrictions in the 1936 deed were valid and binding on plaintiffs as successors in interest.
- Bel-Air established a prescriptive easement over the strip.
- Because Bel-Air’s long, open, continuous use was undisputed and plaintiffs produced no evidence of permissive use, no triable issue of material fact barred summary judgment.

## Legal Principles

- Recorded deed restrictions imposed to protect the use and enjoyment of nearby land may run with the land and bind successors who take through the chain of title.
- A prescriptive easement requires open and notorious, continuous and uninterrupted use for the statutory period, adverse to the owner, and under claim of right.
- When a claimant shows long-continued, open, and unobjected-to use for the prescriptive period, a rebuttable presumption arises that the use was adverse rather than permissive.
- The presumption of adversity shifts the evidentiary burden to the servient landowner to produce evidence that the use was permissive or subordinate to the owner’s title.

## Conclusion

The court upheld deed restrictions protecting a golf course’s use of a conveyed strip and recognized the club’s prescriptive easement, applying a burden-shifting presumption that long, open, continuous, unprotested use is adverse absent evidence of permission.


MacDonald Props., Inc. v. Bel-Air Country Club, 72 Cal. App. 3d 693, 140 Cal. Rptr. 367 (Ct. App. 1977)