Teresa Walker Newman v. Wayne Woodard, et al.

This case concerns the access rights of a landowner to a section of her property divided from the rest of her land by a steep bluff. The trial court held that the landowner did not have an implied easement through her neighbor’s land to access her property at the bottom of the bluff because the there was insufficient evidence that the right-of-way preexisted severance of the properties. The trial court determined that Mrs. Newman did not have an implied easement by necessity because there was insufficient evidence that Mrs. Newman would be unable build a road down the bluff for a reasonable cost. Because the evidence does not preponderate otherwise, we affirm that Mrs. Newman does not have an implied easement or an implied easement by necessity over the right-of-way. The trial court also held that Mrs. Newman lacked a prescriptive easement over the right-of-way because she failed to prove that her use was exclusive; we affirm on the basis that Mrs. Newman failed to demonstrate that her use of the right-of-way was continuous.