## Facts

- Members of the Zuni Tribe periodically travel on foot or horseback from the Zuni Reservation in New Mexico to a mountain area in northeast Arizona (Kohlu/wala:wa) as part of a summer-solstice religious pilgrimage.
- The disputed portion of the route crosses approximately 18–20 miles of land in Apache County, Arizona, owned or leased by Earl Platt and the estate of Buena Platt.
- The pilgrimage occurred on a quadrennial schedule (about every four years) and commonly involved roughly 40–60 participants and 20–40 horses.
- The Tribe’s route was generally consistent over time, openly visible, and widely known in the community.
- The Tribe did not request or receive landowner permission to cross and believed it had a right to do so; when impeded by fences, participants sometimes cut fences to continue along the route.
- In 1985, Earl Platt declared an intent to prevent the Tribe from crossing his land during the pilgrimage.
- The United States filed suit seeking to establish a prescriptive easement and obtained temporary injunctive relief preventing interference with the pilgrimage.
- The Zuni Tribe intervened and asserted additional treaty/statutory and free-exercise theories, but those issues were severed from trial; the court tried only the prescriptive easement claim in a bench trial in January 1990.

## Issues

1. Whether the United States on behalf of the Zuni Tribe proved a prescriptive easement over the Platt land under Arizona law by showing actual, open and notorious, continuous, hostile use under a claim of right for the statutory period.
2. Whether a periodic, quadrennial religious use can satisfy continuity for a prescriptive right-of-way, given the character and purpose of the claimed easement.
3. Whether the evidence showed non-permissive use adverse to the landowners’ rights, rather than tolerated or licensed passage.

## Decision

- The court entered judgment for the United States and the Zuni Tribe, holding that a prescriptive easement existed over the route crossing the Platt land.
- The court found the Tribe’s use was actual, open and notorious, and sufficiently continuous for more than the statutory period, given the nature of the pilgrimage route.
- The court found hostility/claim of right because the Tribe crossed without permission and acted consistently with an asserted right of passage (including continuing past obstacles).
- The easement was limited in scope to the specific route and to the character, timing, and purpose of use established at trial (a periodic pilgrimage around the summer solstice).
- The court’s ruling rested on state property-law principles; it did not decide the severed treaty, international-law, or constitutional/free-exercise theories.

## Legal Principles

- Under Arizona law, a prescriptive easement requires proof of actual use that is open and notorious, continuous, hostile (non-permissive), and under a claim of right for at least the statutory period (ten years).
- Continuity is evaluated in light of the nature of the use claimed; periodic use may be continuous when consistent with the customary pattern of the right-of-way.
- Hostility does not require ill will; it requires use inconsistent with the owner’s exclusive rights and not attributable to the owner’s permission.
- A prescriptive easement is defined by the character and extent of the historical use proven, including route, purpose, and customary frequency.

## Conclusion

The court recognized a narrowly defined prescriptive easement allowing the Zuni Tribe to continue its established pilgrimage route across the Platt land, based on long-standing, open, non-permissive, and regularly repeated use satisfying Arizona’s prescriptive easement elements.


United States ex rel. Zuni Tribe of N.M. v. Platt, 730 F. Supp. 318 (D. Ariz. 1990)