Goodall v. Whitefish Hunting Club

In Goodall v. Whitefish Hunting Club, 208 Mich App 642, 646; 528 NW2d 221 (1995), the plaintiffs claimed the right to use various roads and trails throughout the defendants' property, contending that they had used the roads from 1966 through 1990 or 1991 - considerably longer than fifteen years. The land had been registered in 1972 under the CFA, an act forbidding "the owner of commercial forestland from denying the general public the privilege of hunting or fishing." Id. at 644-645. The defendants claimed that the CFA registration changed the plaintiffs' use of the land to a permissive use, and the Court agreed: In the present case, plaintiffs' use of defendants' roads was related directly to the CFA's protected activity of hunting and fishing. The CFA clearly was designed to encourage the landowner to allow open access to his property for purposes of hunting and fishing. Permitting prescriptive easements to be created if motor vehicles are used to gain access to such lands would conflict with the spirit and purpose of the act. Id. at 646-647. The Court agreed with the defendants' reasoning, that it was "contrary to the intent of the CFA to require landowners to hold their land open for public use, and to then allow loss of a part of their ownership rights as a result of claimed adverse use in excess of fifteen (15) years," particularly where landowners were granted monetary incentives for holding the land open for twenty years or more. Id. at 647. In Goodall, the plaintiffs' use of defendants' road was "related directly to the CFA's protected activity of hunting and fishing." Id. at 646.