Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
Assume there is a road or hiking trail with greater than 50 years of continuous public use that is not in question. But the road or trail needs maintenance (e.g. brush clearing or clearing a tree fall). The owner is absent or unwilling to perform such maintenance.
Can you cite cases that touch on this subject? Can the public compel the owner to permit maintenance? Is neglect a form of notorious blocking of the way?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Sounds as though the public has an easement by prescription, but maitenance of an easement is a user responsibility. If the landowner makes no use of the easement, he/she/it has no financial responsibility to contribute to the maintenance. Further, the fall of dead trees is not a deliberate act; it is a natural phenomenon and needs to be handled by the easement users just the same as erosion, poison oak, and other natural phenomena.
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