Paxson v. Glovitz
Court of Appeals of Arizona
50 P.3d 420 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2002)
In 1979, owners of two adjoining parcels orally agreed to create a permanent 20-foot easement along their boundary line, used to build a paved roadway; though never recorded, the public used the road and subsequent owners, including Paxson (plaintiff, acquired 1995) and Glovitz (defendant, acquired 1998), were both told at purchase that the public had a right to use it. When Glovitz began fencing off the portion of the driveway on his land in 2000, Paxson sued to establish a prescriptive easement, and the trial court granted Glovitz summary judgment (with attorney's fees), finding Paxson's claim baseless in law and fact; Paxson appealed.
Whether an oral agreement creating an easement, never recorded but consistently treated as an easement by successive property owners for over ten years, can ripen into an easement by prescription binding a later purchaser.