Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Virginia

Re: easement

first question is, who owns the road? in some cases, the road is owned by the adjacent property owners as joint tenants, and in others, one person owns the road and everyone else just has an easement. the simple answer is that if the person having fee simple ownership of the road put up the speed bump, and the bump is not an unreasonable interference of your use of your easement, then he's within his rights to do so. if your car damage is because the bump is too big, then it's an unreasonable interference; if it's because you want to go too fast on the dirt road, that's your problem, not his. if you own the road jointly, then there should be a recorded agreement as to how decisions affecting the road can be made, and putting in a speed bump would have to be done according to the terms of the agreement (or recorded easement, for that matter). in theory, if the bump adversely affects your interest in your property, then you could sue him for an injunction to make him take out the bump using a "private nuisance" theory.