In re .88 Acres of Property
Supreme Court of Vermont
676 A.2d 778 (1996)
An 1807 deed donated land to the Town of Shelbourne (plaintiff) conditioned on its use as a public meeting house, but after a second meeting house on the land burned in 1925, the town built a school there instead and constructed its new public meeting house on a different parcel entirely; when the town sought to quiet title decades later, Harrington's estate (defendant) argued the land had reverted upon abandonment of the meeting-house use, and separately that a state statute barred any adverse possession claim to land held for public use.
Whether possession of land used contrary to a deed restriction is sufficiently hostile to establish adverse possession, and whether a statute barring adverse possession of public lands prevents a municipality from adversely possessing formerly restricted land it holds.