The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that a solar developer can access a rancher’s private road in Quay County, NM, under a prescriptive easement following efforts by the ranch to prevent the solar developer from accessing a solar array.
The Supreme Court overturned a Court of Appeals ruling and found “the law of public prescriptive easements in New Mexico does not require a showing of a minimum amount of use or number of users.”
McFarland Land and Cattle Inc. sought to stop Caprock Solar 1 LLC from developing a solar array on land owned by Robert and Billie Abercrombie by charging the company to use a low water crossing to reach leased land on the Abercrombies’ property for construction of the solar farm.
Background
The low water crossing is on a 6-mile-long road known as Quay Road AI, which runs along land owned by Abercrombie and McFarland Land and Cattle Inc. and eventually reaches state-owned land. Sometime in 1954, a flood washed out a bridge used for crossing and the road was rerouted onto McFarland’s land as a low water crossing.
When negotiations broke down between McFarland and Caprock, McFarland filed a petition for a permanent injunction in district court to prevent Caprock from accessing the crossing. According to court documents, McFarland did not attempt to prevent others from accessing the road.
The Abercrombies and the county stated the low water crossing is a public prescriptive easement and that McFarland had no right to interfere with the public’s use of the road.
According to the Quay County Sun, McFarland posted a “No Trespassing” sign stating access would be given with written permission.
The district court ruled in favor of Caprock and the county, ruling the defendants proved the elements of a public prescriptive easement “by clear and convincing evidence.” The court documents state the district court made additional findings of Quay Road AI as being a county road by citing McFarland never prevented others from using the road and the title company for the solar company identified it as a county road.
The state Court of Appeals reversed the district court, finding no clear and convincing evidence that the general public used the road, and that travel by neighboring ranchers and those granted permission to cross the land did not constitute use by the general public.
The Supreme Court overturned the state Court of Appeals’ ruling, stating, “We conclude that the Court of Appeals erred in requiring evidence establishing frequency of use or a minimum number of users, given the other evidence presented at trial and findings of the district court that sufficient evidence proved a public prescriptive easement existed for the low water crossing on (Quay Road AI).” — Charles Wallace, WLJ contributing editor
