Court of Appeals of New Mexico

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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO

No. A-1-CA-38447

ROBERT SCHOOLCRAFT,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

ROSS TOWNSEND,

Defendant-Appellee.

APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF EDDY COUNTY
Jane Shuler Gray, District Judge

Blenden Law Firm

Dick A. Blenden

Carlsbad, NM

for Appellant

Martin, Dugan & Martin

W.T. Martin, Jr.

Carlsbad, NM

for Appellee

MEMORANDUM OPINION

IVES, Judge.

{1}       Plaintiff Robert Schoolcraft appeals a district court judgment in favor of Defendant Ross Townsend on Plaintiff’s claim for a prescriptive easement over Defendant’s property. We reverse and remand for further proceedings because the district court, misunderstanding the import of Hester v. Sawyers, 1937-NMSC-056, 41 N.M. 497, 71 P.2d 646, erroneously applied a bright-line rule that bars users of land from obtaining a prescriptive easement in all cases where the land at issue is unenclosed and the land’s owner is aware of the use.

BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION

{2}       In 2016, Plaintiff purchased an approximately forty-acre tract of land in Eddy County, New Mexico. Because the property is “landlocked”—surrounded on all sides by others’ land with no legal access—Plaintiff, in 2017, brought an action for a prescriptive easement over a pathway across an adjoining parcel of land belonging to Defendant, asserting that previous adverse use of the pathway met the requirement that adverse use must be continuous for the ten-year prescriptive period. See generally Algermissen v. Sutin, 2003-NMSC-001, ¶ 10, 133 N.M. 50, 61 P.3d 176. Following a bench trial, the district court found that Defendant’s land had not been fenced or otherwise enclosed at any point and that Defendant had been aware that various persons had crossed over his land during the relevant time period, findings that are undisputed on appeal. The court understood the holding of Hester to be that all uses of unenclosed land by someone other than the owner are deemed permissive as a matter of law whenever the land’s owner knows of these uses. Applying this rule to its findings, the court ruled in Defendant’s favor because Plaintiff could not succeed on his prescriptive easement claim without proving the element of adverse use.

{3}       Although we ordinarily presume the “rectitude and regularity” of proceedings in a lower court, State v. Gonzales, 1986-NMCA-050, ¶ 28, 105 N.M. 238, 731 P.2d 381, overruled on other grounds by State v. Tollardo, 2012-NMSC-008, ¶ 37 n.6, 275 P.3d 110, we are unable to rely on that presumption in this case. The district court’s order is replete with references to the Hester rule, and, even reading the order generously, we are convinced that the district court’s application of that rule was both erroneous and the sole basis for its ruling. Regardless of whether the district court’s reading of Hester was correct as an original matter, subsequent case law has unambiguously limited the Hester rule—the “neighbor accommodation” or “wild and unenclosed lands” exception—to a far narrower scope than that adopted by the district court. See, e.g., Matsu v. Chavez, 1981-NMSC-113, ¶ 13, 96 N.M. 775, 635 P.2d 584 (“Maestas v. Maestas, [1946-NMSC-036,] 50 N.M. 276, 175 P.2d 1003[,] limited the [Hester] decision to, ‘large bodies of unenclosed land where the owners thereof could not reasonably know of passings over said lands.’ ” (omission omitted)); Algermissen, 2003-NMSC-001, ¶ 17 & n.2 (same). Although Hester and its progeny allow a district court, in determining whether use is from its inception permissive or adverse, to consider the placement of barriers to entry and an owner’s knowledge^[1] that others are using the land over which a prescriptive easement is sought, the district court erred by concluding that those factors are necessarily determinative. We therefore reverse the district court’s judgment and remand to permit the court to reconsider the merits of Plaintiff’s claim in light of this opinion.^[2]

CONCLUSION

{4}       We reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

{5}       IT IS SO ORDERED.

ZACHARY A. IVES, Judge

WE CONCUR:

JANE B. YOHALEM, Judge

GERALD E. BACA, Judge