Lyons v. Baptist School of Christian Training
Maine Supreme Judicial Court
804 A.2d 364 (2002)
For decades, neighboring landowners (plaintiffs) used a private road on the Baptist School's (defendant) property to reach a stream and other land, and for hunting, fishing, and snowmobiling, until the school barred access in 2000 over concerns about abusive off-road-vehicle use; the neighbors sued claiming a public prescriptive easement had formed, and the trial court agreed.
Whether, to obtain a public, prescriptive easement, a plaintiff must prove continuous use by people who are not separable from the public generally, for at least 20 years, under a claim of right adverse to the owner, with the owner's knowledge and acquiescence, or a use so open, notorious, visible, and uninterrupted that knowledge and acquiescence will be presumed.