Facts

Plaintiffs Tom Rezek and Laurie Wallace and defendant Afshin Amiri own adjoining properties in a hillside community in Woodland Hills. A very narrow road services the properties. Plaintiffs claimed to have used a portion of defendant's property on the side of the road for parking and turnaround purposes in an open and notorious and hostile manner for more than five years and sought a prescriptive easement to allow them to continue the use in the future. Defendant denied that his property was used in the claimed fashion.

PLAINTIFF'S CONTENTIONS:
Plaintiffs claimed that the use of defendant's property to park and turnaround was necessary because of the narrow roadway and lack of parking on the street.

DEFENDANT'S CONTENTIONS:
Defendant contended that the claim of prescriptive easement was completely without basis. Plaintiff Rezek was the neighborhood bully who essentially appointed himself as the "sheriff" of the street and did anything and everything he could think of to obstruct the ability of his neighbors to develop and use their properties as they wished. This prescriptive easement claim was simply a pretext to try to accomplish his anti-development goal.

Result

Plaintiffs claimed a prescriptive easement for parking and turnaround purposes over a portion of defendant's property. The court found that plaintiffs failed to prove all four of the necessary elements of a prescriptive easement and judgment was therefore entered in defendant's favor.

Other Information

FILING DATE: Feb. 4, 2010.