John J. Grillion and Michelle A. Ciesluk v. Kelly J. Hassler

• Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa
• Decided: July 3, 2024
• Docket: 22-1013
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 22-1013 Filed July 3, 2024

JOHN J. GRILLION and MICHELLE A. CIESLUK, Plaintiffs-Appellees,

vs.

KELLY J. HASSLER, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Pottawattamie County,

Greg W. Steensland, Judge.

A civil defendant appeals the district court’s findings of a boundary by

acquiescence and easement by prescription. REVERSED AND REMANDED.

Robert M. Livingston of Stuart Tinley Law Firm, LLP, Council Bluffs, for

appellant.

Steven H. Krohn of Smith, Peterson Law Firm, LLP, Council Bluffs, for

appellees.

Considered by Badding, P.J., Buller, J., and Bower, S.J.*

*Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206

(2024). 2

BULLER, Judge.

This case arises from a boundary dispute between two neighbors: one with

a six-acre plot of land and one with a thirty-four-acre plot. John Grillion and

Michelle Ciesulk own the six-acre plot and petitioned to quiet title land along the

border of the thirty-four acre plot owned by Kelly Hassler. The district court ruled

in favor of Grillion and Ciesulk, finding a boundary by acquiescence on Hassler’s

property and that Grillion and Ciesulk had an easement by prescription to use the

disputed land. In light of recent supreme court precedent, we reverse and remand.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings

Hassler and Ciesulk are sisters living in Council Bluffs. In 1982, Hassler

bought a home and six acres of land with her husband, Bob. Bob’s parents bought

the thirty-four-acre plot to the west of the six-acre plot in 2000. An access road

existed at the eastern edge of the thirty-four-acre plot since at least 2001, and the

Hasslers used it to maintain their property.

Before Bob’s parents bought the thirty-four acre plot, a fence ran from the

north to south boundary between the plots, overlaying the correct legal boundaries.

But the Hasslers removed this fencing between 2000 and 2015 to facilitate

gathering hay and harvesting sweet corn. A few posts remained on the property

from the original boundary fence.

Bob’s parents gifted the thirty-four-acre property to the Hasslers in 2012,

meaning the Hasslers then owned both parcels. The family continued using the

access road for various purposes, such as for bringing friends on hayrack rides.

In 2015, Bob died. And Hassler’s children and a group of local volunteers built a

new horse-barrier fence around most of the thirty-four-acre property, with the 3

eastern border of the fence running on the near side of the access road. Hassler

then sold the six-acre plot to Grillion and Ciesulk in 2017 without mentioning the

legal boundaries of the properties.

After buying the property, Grillion and Ciesulk treated the horse-barrier

fence as the boundary line between the properties and maintained the property

east of the horse-barrier fence. Hassler never stopped the two from using this area

as their own, and she thanked them for taking such good care of the property.

Grillion and Ciesulk also used the access road for the next four years. They

spent substantial time on the road to maintain their own property, as they feared

running heavy equipment on their driveway would damage their septic system.

Grillion and Ciesulk never asked for permission to use the access road, but Hassler

let them because they were on “good terms.” Grillion and Ciesulk also asked and

received permission from Hassler for one of their tenants to use the access road,

but it was unclear when.

Hassler notified Ciesulk in 2021 that she intended to hire a land surveyor to

demarcate the proper line between the properties. And several months later, she

moved the fence back to the legal boundary line. This change functionally

decreased the area of Grillion and Ciesulk’s property to 5.85 acres and prevented

their use of the access road.

Grillion and Ciesulk filed a petition to quiet title, alleging the fence between

the properties was the rightful boundary by acquiescence because it had been

treated as such for more than ten years. Following trial in February 2022, the

district court found that Grillion and Ciesulk established a boundary by

acquiescence and that a prescription by easement existed on the access road. 4

Hassler appeals. Because the case was tried in equity, we review de novo. See

Albert v. Conger, 886 N.W.2d 877, 879–80 (Iowa Ct. App. 2016) .

II. Discussion

After briefing and transfer to our court, the supreme court granted further

review in a case addressing the same issue before us: the effect a period of

common ownership has on boundaries between adjacent properties. See

generally Sundance Land Co., LLC v. Remmark, __ N.W.3d ___, 2024

WL 2982688 (Iowa 2024). We held this case pending the supreme court’s

decision, hoping to avoid the parties receiving a decision from us potentially

conflicting with the supreme court or leading to further review (and more delays)

before resolution. We conclude Sundance controls our analysis here.

The Sundance court examined cases relating to common ownership and

easements, observing: “[T]he need for the easement generally goes away under

common ownership. . . . Hence, it is logical to require reestablishment of the

easement . . . when separate ownership resumes.” Id. at ___, 2024 WL 2982688,

at *6. Thus “easements are extinguished when the dominant and servient estates

merge[;] it would be both illogical and impossible to create an easement for the

benefit of the same land which the easement burdens.” Gray v. Osborn, 739

N.W.2d 855, 862 (Iowa 2007).

The Sundance court applied the same logic to boundaries by acquiescence.

__ N.W.3d at ___, 2024 WL 2982688, at *7. “[C]ommon ownership eradicates

potentially acquiesced boundaries between the two properties other than the

legally established ones.” Id. at ___, 2024 WL 2982688, at *10. “[W]here, as here,

a common grantor conveys adjoining properties, the relevant inquiry is not whether 5

there had been a boundary previously established by acquiescence but instead

what boundary the common grantor set when conveying the properties.” Id.

at ___, 2024 WL 2982688, at *11 (McDonald, J., concurring) (“These

determinations implicate, among other things, contract law, the common grantor

rule, the law of estoppel, and the law of easement by implication rather than the

law of boundary by acquiescence.”). In short, common ownership unwinds

boundary-by-acquiescence and prescriptive-easement claims, and transfer to

separate owners is necessary to re-start the clock.

Here, the Hasslers owned both parcels from 2012 until 2017. Iowa Code

section 650.6 (2021) requires the alleged boundary to “have been recognized and

acquiesced in by the parties or their grantors for a period of ten consecutive years.”

A prescriptive easement also must have been in use for ten years or more. Brede

v. Koop, 706 N.W.2d 824, 828 (Iowa 2005). Applying Sundance, Hassler’s

common ownership of both parcels unwound any previous prescriptive easement

or boundary by acquiescence, restarting the required ten-year periods in 2017

when the parcels were once again under separate ownership. See __ N.W.3d

at ___, 2024 WL 2982688, at *7–8 (“We think the phrasing [of Iowa Code section

650.6] requires separate grantors in the chain of title from when ever the ten-year

period starts through the present.”). As a result, the earliest a prescriptive

easement or boundary by acquiescence might again be established is 2027. And

since there was not a prescriptive easement or boundary by acquiescence as of

the 2022 trial, the district court erred in concluding otherwise. We reverse and

remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion and Sundance.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.