Mueller v. Hoblyn
Supreme Court of Wyoming
887 P.2d 500 (1994)
Mueller (defendant) acquired land burdened by an appurtenant roadway easement benefiting neighboring land later owned by Coffee and Hoblyn (plaintiffs), who sometimes couldn't use the road due to winter snow drifts. In 1990, Coffee discovered through a survey that the actual roadway path didn't match the recorded easement except for a small overlap; years earlier, in 1977, Mueller had drilled a water well, farmed, and fenced within the recorded easement boundaries, and he refused to let Coffee and Hoblyn use the proper easement, claiming it had been abandoned and separately extinguished by adverse possession. The district court found the well terminated the easement over a 200-foot section by adverse possession but otherwise left the easement intact, and both sides appealed.
Whether an easement is terminated by abandonment when the easement holder's affirmative actions manifest a clear intent to permanently abandon it, and whether an easement is terminated by adverse possession when the servient owner's use of the easement area is visible, notorious, and inconsistent with the easement holder's rights for the statutory period.