Breaking: Mass. High Court Rules Municipality’s Acquisition of Prescriptive Easement Isn’t a Taking
In a rescript opinion issued this morning in Gentili v. Town of Sturbridge (pdf), the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) ruled that a municipality’s acquisition of a prescriptive easement over private property is not an eminent domain taking. In prior proceedings in Gentili, the Land Court ruled that the defendant town had acquired a prescriptive easement to discharge surface water through a culvert onto the plaintiffs’ property. Instead of appealing, the plaintiffs filed a Superior Court case seeking damages under M.G.L. c. 79, the state’s eminent domain statute. The Superior Court granted summary judgment to the town and the plaintiffs appealed. The SJC transferred the appeal to itself for decision.
In briskly affirming the Superior Court, the SJC said, “[t]he problem with the [plaintiff] trust’s argument is that the theories and laws of prescriptive easements and takings do not interact in the way that the trust suggests.” Citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in Texaco, Inc.