PORTLAND— A property dispute in the Holiday Beach neighborhood of Owls Head that has been in legal proceedings since 2020 was resolved after a final ruling was issued by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court Aug. 20 following a bench trial in Knox County Superior Court on numerous claims and counterclaims by the litigants.

The case involves a dispute over the ownership and boundaries and use of “paper streets,” Austin Avenue and the Reserved Way that transect the properties of the litigants in the lawsuit, John and Christine Carter and their neighbors, Michael and N. Kermit Voncannon, and Zachary Rogers and Kathryn Rogers as trustees of the Nancy C. Rogers Irrevocable Trust.

A “paper street” is defined in the suit as “a thoroughfare that appears on plats, subdivision maps, and other publicly filed documents, but that has not been completed or opened for public use.”

The court affirmed the judgment awarding the southern half of the Reserved Way to the Voncannons and the northern half of the Reserved way to the Rogers Trust. The court determined that they fulfilled each of the necessary elements of adverse possession, a legal principle in common law under which a person who does not have legal right to a piece of property, usually land, may acquire legal ownership based on continuous possession or occupation of the property without the permission of its legal owner, according to the suit.

The case involved an area of Owls Head known as Holiday Beach neighborhood near Owls Head Harbor.

The court also affirmed the judgments determining that the location of the southwestern corner of Holiday Beach Road and the Reserved Way is accurately reflected by a revised boundary survey completed in March 2022, that the Reserved Way does not extend to the high-water mark of Owls Head Harbor, and that the Voncannons and Rogerses did not establish title to any part of Austin Avenue under any common-law theory.

Litigation in the suit began when the Carters filed a complaint in Superior Court on August 10, 2020, and the case was transferred to the Business and Consumer Docket on January 8, 2021. The Carters’ second amended complaint, filed on September 5, 2020, named the Voncannons, the Rogers, and two other families as defendants. The second amended complaint included a petition for declaratory relief, a claim for trespass, a claim for slander of title, a petition to quiet title, and a claim for nuisance. The defendants then filed an amended answer and counterclaims.

The Carters settled their claims against the parties other than the Voncannons and the Rogers at a judicial settlement conference on February 22, 2022. The court then held a five-day bench trial on March 21-25, 2022, to address the remaining claims. The court issued its judgment, entering judgment in part on the Carters’ claims and entering judgment in part on the Voncannons’ and Rogers’ counterclaims.

The Carters filed a notice of appeal on August 31, 2022, but the court dismissed it for lack of a final judgment. The court later granted the Carters’ motion for entry of final judgment on December 12, 2022. The Carters timely appealed, alleging that the trial court erred by concluding that the Reserved Way does not extend to the high-water mark of Owls Head Harbor and by awarding title to half of the Reserved Way to the Voncannons and the other half to the Rogerses based on a theory of adverse possession.

Attorneys Gordon R. Smith and Keith E. Glidden of Verrill Dana, LLP, of Portland, represented the Carters, Attorneys David A. Soley and Glenn Israel of Berstein Shur of Portland, and Joseph L. Cahoon, Jr. of Richardson, Whitman, Large and Badger in Portland for the Voncannons and Attorney Christopher E. Pazar of Drummond and Drummond, LLP, of Portland, for the Rogerses.

Reach Sarah Shepherd at news@penbaypilot.com