Easement scope; Unverzagt v Miller; Implied easement; Quasi-easement; Charles A Murray Trust v Futrell; Common-law private dedication; Redmond v Van Buren Cnty; Prescriptive easement; Adverse use; Le Roy v Collins

The court held that plaintiffs failed to establish any legal right to use defendants’ private paths for recreational purposes, whether through the easement recognized in Unverzagt, an implied easement, a common-law private dedication, or individual prescriptive easements. Plaintiffs, a property owners’ association and two lot owners in Macatawa Park, sought to use Bay Road, North Walk, and Lakeside Way, private rights of way located in or near a plat referred to as HS31, for recreational walks and lighthouse access. Defendants blocked or restricted that access. The trial court granted partial summary disposition to defendants on the association-wide easement theories and, after a bench trial, rejected the two individual plaintiffs’ prescriptive-easement claims. On appeal, the court held that Unverzagt did not control because that decision referred only to the 1888 Macatawa Park plat and allowed only uses “reasonably necessary and convenient to the proper enjoyment of the easement,” not recreational foot traffic through HS31. The court next held that plaintiffs’ implied-easement theory failed because they produced no evidence of unity of title and because “our Supreme Court does not recognize quasi-easements for rights of way” of this type. The court also held that the common-law-private-dedication claim failed because plaintiffs offered no evidence of “a clear expression of an intent to dedicate made by an identifiable owner,” and historical maps, books, and flyers might bear on scope but “do[] not create a dedication.” The court finally held that the two lot owners did not prove adverse use for a prescriptive easement because defendants and their predecessors improved the paths and “generally left them open for others to freely use,” so the use was “‘permissive only, and under an implied license.’” Affirmed.