Background
Ronald and Robin Packer sued neighboring owners in the Arhana Crest Subdivision over their use of Park A, a platted lakefront park on Barlow Lake. The subdivision’s 1941 plat dedicated its drives, courts, and parks “to the use of lot owners of Arhana Crest only.” The Packers, whose Lot 3 has separate lake frontage next to Park A, contended that the neighbors’ docks, moored boats, and related activities exceeded the dedication and interfered with the Packers’ riparian rights.
The Barry Circuit Court held that parcels separated from the lake only by Park A had riparian rights. After a bench trial, it also ruled alternatively that certain defendants had acquired a prescriptive easement permitting docks and boat mooring. Its final judgment allowed defendants to continue sharing the existing four-finger dock and imposed restrictions on launching, mooring, storage, parking, boat hoists, and other uses of the park. The Packers appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals vacated the ruling that the park-abutting back-lot owners had riparian rights. The trial court had misread Dobie v. Morrison, which did not establish that every parcel separated from a lake only by a park is riparian. The Dobie owners held riparian rights because they owned the waterfront park in fee as successors to the platters. The panel declined to decide who owned Park A because ownership was unnecessary to resolve the appeal, but it stated that even fee ownership of portions abutting the park would not extend those portions to the lakefront.
The panel held that the 1941 dedication created an easement allowing all subdivision lot owners to use Park A, but the dedication itself did not authorize riparian activities such as maintaining docks or permanently mooring boats. It also reversed the finding of a prescriptive easement because defendants’ historical use was mutual, consensual, and permissive—not adverse—for most of the relevant period. Opposition arose only after the Packers became concerned in 2018, complained to the township in 2020, and sued in 2022, far short of the required 15 years. The court vacated the trial court’s findings concerning the prescriptive easement’s scope and remanded for a determination of which uses, if any, fall within the plat dedication.
Key Takeaways
- Property does not acquire riparian rights merely because a waterfront park lies between it and a lake; Dobie turned on fee ownership of the park by successors to the platters.
- A plat dedication granting lot owners “use” of a waterfront park creates an easement but does not, without more, authorize docks, permanent boat mooring, or other riparian activities.
- Longstanding shared use cannot establish a prescriptive easement when the use was mutual and permissive; adversity must continue for the full 15-year statutory period.
Why It Matters
The decision distinguishes lake-access rights created by a subdivision plat from riparian rights arising from ownership of waterfront land. Historical practices involving communal docks and boats do not necessarily define the scope of a broadly worded park easement, particularly when there is no evidence of the platters’ intent when the dedication was created.
On remand, the trial court must determine which activities Park A’s dedication permits without relying on the vacated riparian-rights ruling or the reversed prescriptive-easement finding. The opinion leaves the park’s fee ownership unresolved.