H & F Land, Inc. v. Panama City-Bay County Airport and Industrial District
Supreme Court of Florida
763 So.2d 1167 (1999)
H & F Land (plaintiff) acquired a small parcel that had become landlocked and inaccessible without crossing land owned by the Industrial District (defendant), and sued claiming a common-law way of necessity across the District's land. The District moved for summary judgment, arguing the claim was extinguished under Florida's Marketable Record Title Act because no notice of the claim had been filed within the Act's thirty-year period; the trial court agreed, the appellate court affirmed but certified a legal question, and the Florida Supreme Court took up the case.
Whether Florida's Marketable Record Title Act extinguishes an otherwise valid common-law claim to a way of necessity when the claim is not publicly asserted within the Act's thirty-year period.