Main Street Plaza v. Cartwright & Main, LLC

Introduction

Plaintiffs, owners of a retail center and food court, sought a judicial declaration that they had acquired a prescriptive easement for parking and access by their tenants’ customers, employees, suppliers, and other invitees, over an alleyway behind the owners’ property. The alleyway is located on *1047 plaintiffs’ property and two adjoining properties. A railway easement ran along the same land as the alleyway; property taxes were assessed on the railway easement, and the holder of the railway easement paid those taxes.

Defendant owners of the two adjoining properties filed motions for summary judgment and summary adjudication. The trial court granted the motions and entered judgment, concluding that no prescriptive easement in favor of plaintiffs had arisen on defendants’ properties because plaintiffs did not pay property taxes on the separately assessed railway easement. Plaintiffs appeal.

We reverse the order granting summary adjudication and hold that because the railway easement was not coextensive in use with plaintiffs’ claimed prescriptive easement, payment of taxes by plaintiffs on the separately assessed railway easement was not an element of…