H & F Land, Inc. v. Panama City-Bay County Airport And Industrial District

736 So.2d 1167 (1999)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Coastal once owned all the land at issue. In 1940, 390 acres were conveyed to Bay County, which in turn conveyed to the Panama Airport Board in 1947. The land is now owned by the Panama City-Bay County Airport and Industrial District. After the 1940 transfer, Coastal retained a small piece of land that was both water and landlocked. The parties agree that an implied common law way of necessity from this parcel over the land of the Airport was created in 1940. No notice of a claim was ever filed in the public records or asserted by use. The parcel was conveyed to Hobbs in 1943 with other land still owned by Coastal. H&F acquired the parcel in 1992. In 1996, H&F (P) sued and asserted the right to necessity across the Airport’s (D) land. D filed a motion for summary judgment under MRTA, a Florida statute. The trial court agreed that the way of necessity had long been extinguished because the owners had failed to publicly assert a claim thereto. This appeal resulted.