## Facts

- Several adjoining rural tracts in Tangipahoa Parish were originally owned by Sam and Vivian Arnold, including interior family parcels and a 1.767-acre tract nearest a public road.
- A gravel road ran east from the public road across the 1.767-acre tract and along the southern edges of interior tracts, providing access to the interior properties.
- The gravel road was used for decades by the Arnolds, their descendants, tenants, and neighboring landowners for access between the public road and the interior tracts.
- In 1980, the Arnolds sold one interior tract (later owned by the Martinsons) by a recorded act of sale that expressly granted a servitude “0.45 chains in width” running east–west to connect the public road to other Arnold property, referencing a survey that depicted the road.
- Later transfers of the 1.767-acre tract (later purchased by Baynum and Kayla Aikman) did not expressly restate the servitude language.
- After purchasing and occupying the 1.767-acre tract, the Aikmans blocked the gravel road, preventing the owners of the interior tracts from using it for access.

## Issues

1. Whether a conventional predial servitude of passage was validly created by recorded title burdening the tract now owned by the Aikmans and benefiting the plaintiffs’ interior tracts.
2. If a servitude existed, whether it was extinguished by prescription of nonuse for ten years.
3. Whether permanent injunctive relief was proper to prevent interference with the servitude.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the judgment recognizing a servitude of passage along the gravel road across the Aikman tract for the benefit of the plaintiffs’ properties.
- The court held the servitude was created by express title in the recorded 1980 act of sale, and its location corresponded to the gravel road as shown by surveys and corroborated by testimony.
- The court rejected the defense of ten-year nonuse because the record showed continued exercise of the passage right and no uninterrupted ten-year period of total nonuse.
- The court affirmed the permanent injunction prohibiting the Aikmans from obstructing the servitude.
- The court declined to modify the trial court’s rulings on damages and attorney’s fees sought by the plaintiffs on appeal.

## Legal Principles

- A predial servitude is a charge on a servient estate for the benefit of a dominant estate; once established, it runs with the land and binds successors unless lawfully extinguished.
- A conventional predial servitude may be created by express title; the servitude’s scope and location are determined from the title as interpreted in light of intent and supported by competent evidence.
- Reference in a recorded act to an unrecorded survey does not defeat creation of a servitude when the recorded act sufficiently describes the servitude and the evidence establishes its location.
- Predial servitudes are extinguished by prescription of nonuse after ten years; any exercise of the right within the prescriptive period interrupts nonuse, and the question is largely factual.
- Appellate review of factual findings on creation, location, and use of a servitude is governed by the manifest error/clearly wrong standard.
- When a servitude is recognized and interference is shown, a permanent injunction is an appropriate remedy to prevent obstruction of the servitude’s exercise.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed recognition of a conventional predial servitude of passage along a longstanding gravel road and upheld an injunction against obstruction, finding the servitude was created by recorded title and preserved by continued use that prevented ten-year prescription of nonuse.


Naramore v. Aikman, 252 So. 3d 935 (La. Ct. App. 1st Cir. 2018)