## Facts

- In 1994, a subdivision split a parcel into two residential lots, later owned by Njal and Jane Schold (dominant estate) and William and Mary Sawyer (servient estate).
- The subdivision plat expressly granted the Scholds a 40-foot-wide right-of-way easement across the Sawyers’ property.
- A driveway ran within the easement area.
- The driveway within the easement was the Scholds’ sole access route from a public road to their property.
- Shortly after purchasing the burdened lot, the Sawyers erected fence gates and installed cattle guards at both ends of the driveway.
- The Scholds sued for injunctive relief, alleging the gates and cattle guards were obstructions that interfered with their right to use the easement.
- The trial court granted the Scholds’ motion for summary judgment and ordered the Sawyers to remove the gates and cattle guards.
- The Sawyers appealed, arguing the trial court misapplied summary-judgment standards and that the record did not eliminate fact disputes about interference and reasonableness.

## Issues

1. Did the trial court err by granting summary judgment and injunctive relief ordering removal of gates and cattle guards when fact questions remained about whether those structures unreasonably interfered with the Scholds’ express access easement?
2. Did the trial court fail to apply C.R.C.P. 56(c) by not giving the Sawyers, as the nonmoving party, the benefit of reasonable favorable inferences from the record?

## Decision

- The Colorado Court of Appeals reversed the summary judgment and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held summary judgment was improper because the record did not show, as a matter of law, that the gates and cattle guards constituted an unreasonable interference with the Scholds’ easement rights.
- The court concluded the trial court did not apply the required summary-judgment approach of viewing the evidence and reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party.

## Legal Principles

- Summary judgment under C.R.C.P. 56(c) is a drastic remedy and is proper only when there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
- The moving party bears the burden to show the absence of a genuine issue of material fact.
- In reviewing a request for summary judgment, a court must accept the nonmoving party’s material allegations as true and give the nonmoving party all reasonable favorable inferences from the evidence; any doubt about whether a material fact is disputed is resolved against the moving party.
- A servient landowner may make use of property burdened by an express easement so long as that use does not unreasonably interfere with the dominant owner’s easement use.
- Whether gates and cattle guards on an access easement amount to an unreasonable interference generally depends on the circumstances and may require fact-finding when competing inferences can be drawn from the record.

## Conclusion

Because the record allowed different conclusions about the extent to which the Sawyers’ gates and cattle guards affected the Scholds’ ability to use their express driveway easement, the trial court could not order removal through summary judgment; the court of appeals therefore reversed and remanded for further proceedings under the proper summary-judgment standard.


Schold v. Sawyer, Colorado Court of Appeals