Timothy L. Pickens and Melanie T. Pickens v. Shirley Ann Osborne, No. CL-2025-0557, ___So. 3d ___ (Ala. Civ. App. Jan. 30, 2026). The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals (Edwards, J., and Moore, P.J., Hanson, and Bowden, J.J., concur; Fridy, J., concurs in the result) reverses and remands the case with instructions, holding that granting of a prescriptive easement requires evidence of hostile use rather than permissive use of the subject property with actual or presumptive knowledge of the owner for the requisite twenty-year time period.
Shirley Osborne and her ex-husband, David, purchased Lot 28 in Bayview Estates in 1983. The only way to access a public road from Lot 29 is by crossing Lot 28. Ms. *2. Lot 29 was separated into three parcels, with the relevant, easternmost parcel containing the driveway and a boat ramp owned by Howard Simpson. In June 1983, Simpson and David Osborne recorded an “agreement and easement”, (“the 1983 agreement”) “Simpson and [David C. Osborne], or an agreement between the owners of Lots #28 and Lot #29,” wherein Simpson would allow David Osborne access to and use of a boat ramp on Lot 29 as long as David Osborne owned the land. Ms. *3. Both Shirley and David Osborne signed the agreement with Simpson. The Osbornes divorced in 1995, and David transferred his interest in Lot 28 to Shirley.
Ms. Osborne and her son enjoyed use of the Lot 29 driveway with permission until 2022 when the new owners of Lot 29, Melanie and Timothy Pickens, placed railroad ties along the property line of Lot 28, preventing Ms. Osborne’s use of the driveway. Id. Ms. Osborne sued, seeking a prescriptive easement for the driveway and the boat ramp, relying on the 1983 agreement that terminated in 1985 when the Osbornes divorced. Ms. *9. The trial court entered a judgment in favor of Ms. Osborne. The Pickenses appealed.
[T] establish an easement by prescription, the claimant must use the premises over which the easement is claimed for a period of twenty years or more, adversely to the owner of the premises, under claim of right, exclusive, continuous, and uninterrupted, with actual or presumptive knowledge of the owner. The presumption is that the use is permissive, and the claimant has the burden of proving that the use was adverse to the owner.
Ms. *11, quoting Bull v. Salsman, 435 So. 2d 27, 29 (Ala. 1983) (internal citations omitted).
The Court holds that because Ms. Osborne testified she used the boat ramp and driveway with permission consistently since the termination of the 1983 agreement, Ms. Osborne failed to meet her burden that the use of same was hostile in nature. The Court reverses the judgment of the trial court and remands the case for entry of a judgment consistent with this opinion.