Background
The parties own adjacent parcels in Marshall County, West Virginia. Lisa Reilley-Koontz’s residential parcel borders the Marshall County Board of Education’s parcel, on which John Marshall High School and its athletic facilities sit. Little Grave Creek runs along the property line between them. In 1985, Ms. Reilley-Koontz’s family constructed an embankment, a bridge, and an elevated roadway known as “Duck Lane” across the Creek to access their parcel. Over the following decades, those structures impeded the Creek’s natural flow, causing repeated flooding of the Board’s property and damage to the school’s baseball field in 2004, 2008, 2009, and 2010.
In September 2010, the Board sued Ms. Reilley-Koontz’s father (the then-owner), asserting continuing trespass, interference with riparian rights, and nuisance claims, and seeking an injunction requiring removal of Duck Lane. A jury found for the Board on all four flood events, and the circuit court granted the requested injunction. On an earlier appeal, the Supreme Court of Appeals in Reilley I (2022) affirmed the jury verdict on causation, reversed rulings on two flood claims as time-barred, and vacated the injunction order because it lacked the findings of fact and conclusions of law required by Rule 52 of the West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure, remanding for a compliant new order.
On remand, the Circuit Court of Marshall County entered a detailed order on January 22, 2024, again granting injunctive relief and directing Ms. Reilley-Koontz—who inherited the parcel from her mother—to remove the bridge, roadway embankment, and associated concrete debris obstructing the Creek. Ms. Reilley-Koontz appealed, arguing the structures are necessary to access her property.
The Court’s Holding
The Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed the circuit court’s January 22, 2024, injunction order in full. The court found that the circuit court had complied with the Reilley I mandate by supplying thorough findings of fact and conclusions of law, and that those factual findings—that the Reilley bridge, embankment, and related sedimentation cause water to impound on the Board’s property during high flows—were not clearly erroneous.
The court also upheld the circuit court’s legal analysis under West Virginia riparian-rights doctrine. Relying on McCausland v. Jarrell, 136 W. Va. 569 (1951), and Atkinson v. Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co., 74 W. Va. 633 (1914), the court confirmed that a landowner has a property right to the natural flow of a watercourse crossing its land, and that equity may compel removal of obstructions that divert or impede that flow to a neighbor’s injury. Ms. Reilley-Koontz’s need for access to her parcel did not override the Board’s riparian rights or excuse the ongoing nuisance.
Key Takeaways
- West Virginia equity courts have jurisdiction to order the physical removal of structures that obstruct the natural flow of a watercourse to the detriment of a downstream or adjacent riparian landowner.
- An injunction order entered after an evidentiary proceeding must contain specific findings of fact and conclusions of law under Rule 52 of the West Virginia Rules of Civil Procedure; failure to do so requires remand, not reversal on the merits.
- A property owner’s practical need to access their land does not justify maintaining structures that constitute a continuing nuisance and violate a neighbor’s riparian rights.
- Appellate review of injunctions is three-pronged: abuse of discretion for the ultimate disposition, clear error for factual findings, and de novo for legal questions.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces that West Virginia riparian rights carry real enforcement teeth: courts will not only award damages for flooding caused by upstream obstructions but will also compel the physical removal of those obstructions through mandatory injunctions, even when the offending structures have stood for decades and provide the owner with practical benefits such as property access. Landowners in the state who have built across natural watercourses—whether bridges, culverts, or embankments—should take note that longstanding use does not insulate them from injunctive liability if those structures alter natural drainage to a neighbor’s detriment.
The case also serves as a procedural reminder for practitioners litigating injunctive relief in West Virginia trial courts: an injunction order, however well-intentioned, will not survive appellate scrutiny unless it articulates specific findings of fact and separate conclusions of law as required by Rule 52. The multi-year delay caused by the first remand in this litigation illustrates the practical cost of that procedural shortcut.