## Facts

- Adjacent commercial parcels in Vernon, California, were acquired in 1972 from a common owner; Warsaw owned the southerly parcel and Chicago Metallic owned the northerly parcel.
- Warsaw’s parcel was largely covered by a commercial building, with a 40-foot-wide paved driveway along its northern edge leading to loading docks.
- Chicago Metallic built a smaller building extending about half the parcel depth, leaving a vacant strip abutting Warsaw’s driveway.
- Because the driveway width was insufficient for trucks to turn and back into Warsaw’s loading docks, trucks regularly used part of Chicago Metallic’s vacant strip to enter, turn, park, and exit.
- From approximately 1972 to 1979, Warsaw’s truck-related use of the strip occurred openly and continuously; Warsaw twice attempted but failed to obtain a formal easement.
- In 1979, Chicago Metallic raised and built on the strip in a manner that blocked Warsaw’s maneuvering use.
- Warsaw sued for declaratory and injunctive relief to establish a prescriptive easement and prevent or remove the interference; a preliminary injunction was denied and construction proceeded.

## Issues

1. Whether Warsaw’s long-term use of Chicago Metallic’s strip created a prescriptive easement (including whether the use was adverse rather than permissive).
2. Whether a court may issue a mandatory injunction requiring removal or relocation of a structure that obstructs an established easement.
3. Whether a servient owner is entitled to compensation from the prescriptive easement holder for (a) the fair market value of the easement or (b) the cost of removing or relocating obstructing improvements.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the judgment recognizing a prescriptive easement over a 25-foot-wide strip of Chicago Metallic’s property.
- The court upheld a mandatory injunction requiring Chicago Metallic to dismantle and relocate the obstructing structure to eliminate interference with the easement.
- The court held Warsaw owed no compensation to Chicago Metallic for the value of the prescriptive easement.
- The court held Warsaw could not be charged with any portion of the removal/relocation costs under the circumstances, where Chicago Metallic built with notice of Warsaw’s claim and use.

## Legal Principles

- A prescriptive easement may be established by open, notorious, continuous, and adverse use for the statutory period.
- California’s prescriptive-easement statutes contemplate acquisition by operation of law and do not authorize compensating the servient owner for the easement’s value.
- Once a prescriptive easement exists, the dominant owner is entitled to use it free from unreasonable interference by the servient owner.
- Mandatory injunctive relief may be granted to remove or relocate improvements that obstruct an easement, and the cost of removing an obstruction typically rests with the party who created it, particularly when done with notice.
- Any shift to a compensation regime for prescriptive easements is a legislative decision, not a judicial one.

## Conclusion

The California Supreme Court confirmed that prescriptive easements arise without payment to the servient landowner and affirmed injunctive relief requiring the servient owner, who built with notice, to remove or relocate improvements that obstruct the easement at its own expense.


Warsaw v. Chi. Metallic Ceilings, Inc., 35 Cal. 3d 564 (Cal. 1984)