This document details the case of Jost v. Resta, in which the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine affirmed a lower court’s judgment recognizing a prescriptive easement for Helen Jost across her neighbors’ (the Restas) land.

Key points from the document:

• Prescriptive Easement: The court found that Jost and her predecessors in title had established a prescriptive easement for a way across the Restas’ property, appurtenant to Jost’s Holt’s Point lot. This was based on continuous, open, and adverse use for over 20 years, with the servient estate owner’s knowledge and acquiescence.
• Scope of Easement: The easement was ruled to be ten feet wide and “for passage by foot and vehicles, including motor vehicle, for all purposes of a private way,” providing ingress and egress to Holt’s Point. The court explicitly stated it does not include the right to extend utility lines.
• Evidence of Use: Testimony showed regular and frequent use of the way since at least October 1965, when Jost’s parents began building a cottage, and even earlier. Evidence included driving trucks and tractors for clearing timber and extending a road, as well as prior owners using the way for cutting firewood and accessing a clam shack. Wheel ruts were noted as early as 1939.
• Easement by Necessity Claim Denied: Jost’s cross-appeal for an easement by necessity was denied because she failed to demonstrate that such an easement was “strictly necessary” at the time the Holt’s Point lot was severed from the servient estate in 1852.
• Future Scope of Easement: The court declined to declare at this time that the prescriptive easement is limited to enjoyment “by one single-family, seasonal dwelling,” as the Restas had not presented evidence of Jost overburdening or proposing to overburden the easement.

Summary by Gemini