Also known as: periods of prescription · prescription period · prescription periods · prescriptive period
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
The period of time fixed by local law as sufficient for obtaining easements and profits by prescription against the owner of a present interest. It includes any further time allowed by local law because of infancy, insanity, or similar disabilities.
Pedro Pacheco drove maintenance trucks across Pierce Patterson's gravel path several times each week for eighteen years to reach a server facility. The trucks followed the same route on a fixed schedule without any break in the pattern. When Patterson erected a barrier, Pacheco claimed a prescriptive easement. The court measured the full span of use against the period of prescription to decide whether the claim ripened.
Priscilla Parks began crossing Pilar Pena's corner lot daily to reach a beach in 2005. In 2015 Parks sold her parcel and assigned all rights in the path to Pierre Poulin, who continued the identical daily crossings. Poulin maintained the visible dirt trail without interruption until Pena fenced the lot in 2023. The court added the two periods of use to determine whether the prescriptive period had been satisfied.
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Paul Peterson parked delivery vans on Prosperity Investments' strip of land every weekday for the statutory period. The parking blocked any possible use of an existing access easement. Prosperity Investments never interrupted the parking. The court examined whether the adverse parking satisfied the period of prescription and thereby extinguished the easement.
Pioneer Energy cleared and used a path across Pacific Bank's land daily for ten years. Pioneer then conveyed its factory parcel to Premier Manufacturing by deed that expressly assigned all interests in the path. Premier continued the daily use for another eight years. The court added the two periods because privity existed between the successive users.
The use must be adverse, open and notorious, and continuous and uninterrupted for the full period fixed by local law. The Restatement requires that the use match what would be privileged if an easement already existed.
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Periods may be tacked when privity exists between the users through a transfer of the benefited estate or the inchoate servitude. The assignment must convey the relevant interest in the route.
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Brief and infrequent interruptions do not destroy continuity if the overall pattern of regular use continues for the full period. The law examines whether the dominant use remained substantially unbroken.
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The period does not begin to run against a future interest holder until that interest becomes possessory, unless the adverse use takes the corpus and the remainderman has notice.
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…on the 16.31 acres prior to 1906. “Since a person cannot claim adversely to himself, the courts uniformly maintain that the prescriptive period does not begin to run while the dominant and servient tracts are under the same ownership.” 17 Am. Jur., Easements, Sec. 69, p. 980. It follows that the judgment of the Court of Civil…