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Property Law Appellate Court Opinion

by Zigadto, Janet

 

AC45974 - Vering v. Groton Long Point Assn., Inc. (Declaratory judgment; adverse possession; prescriptive easement; "The present case arises from a dispute between the plaintiffs, Peter B. Viering, Russell W. Viering, Jr., Christine Carr, Jane M. Battles, Thomas E. Kingston, Jr., and Bobbye Lou Sims, and the defendant, The Groton Long Point Association, Inc., concerning the plaintiffs' claimed right to make exclusive use of two strips of land denominated as rights-of-way on land owned by the defendant that abuts the plaintiffs' residential properties in the Groton Long Point section of Groton. The plaintiffs appeal from the judgment rendered against them by the trial court on the granting of a motion for summary judgment filed by the defendant and the denial of the plaintiffs' own motion for summary judgment. On appeal, the plaintiffs claim that the court erred in its summary judgment rulings by (1) failing to consider whether access easements over the two rights-of-way had been granted to them by deed, and thereby conferred on them the right to use such rights-of-way to the exclusion of all others, and failing in so ruling to consider certain extrinsic evidence allegedly relevant to that claim; (2) concluding that the defendant was entitled to judgment as a matter of law on the plaintiffs' claim that they had acquired the rights-of-way by adverse possession or, alternatively, that they had acquired prescriptive easements over the rights-of-way; and (3) failing to address their claim that the defendant had abandoned the rights-of-way. We affirm the judgment of the court.")