Fling v. Daniel, 2019 Ohio 1723

William Fling (appellant) and Janet Daniel (appellee) own adjoining parcels that formerly belonged to their fathers; a spring and water system on Daniel’s parcel historically supplied both properties.
In 1962 the brothers (William Sr. and Albert) installed a shared spring, tank, waterline, and pump; they informally split construction/repair work and had no written easement.
After Albert’s death, William Sr., Juel (William Sr.’s spouse), and Daniel executed a 2000 written water‑supply agreement allocating maintenance costs and limiting use to residential purposes while William Sr. or Juel resided on the Fling property.
William Sr. died in 2005 and Juel in 2016; William E. Fling does not live on the property and sought to formalize water rights before investing in improvements.
After he sought a recorded easement in 2017, Daniel’s husband cut and capped the line to the Fling parcel. Fling sued for declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging implied, prescriptive, equitable, or other easement theories.
The trial court denied relief, finding no implied easement, no prescriptive easement (parents’ use was permissive), and that easement‑by‑estoppel either was not recognized or was not proven; this appeal followed.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Fling has a prescriptive easement in the spring/water system	Use began in 1962 and was continuous; expenditure and long use support prescriptive rights (Shanks presumption)	Use was permissive/licensed, not hostile or adverse; no exclusive adverse use for 21 years	Trial court affirmed: no prescriptive easement — use was permissive; appellate court finds this not against manifest weight
Whether easement by estoppel exists and was proven	Ohio recognizes easement by estoppel; parents and successors expended money and paid for repairs in reliance, so estoppel should bar denial	Even if doctrine exists, no clear and convincing evidence that parents spent money in reliance on a purported easement rather than a revocable license or contractual arrangement	Appellate court: Ohio recognizes easements by estoppel, but here Fling failed to prove it by clear and convincing evidence (reliance/adversity lacking)

Yeager v. Tuning, 79 Ohio St. 121 (1908) (parol license distinguished from easement; license revocable despite expenditures and cannot be converted into easement by estoppel under that rule)
Shanks v. Floom, 162 Ohio St. 479 (1955) (oral agreement and substantial, permanent joint improvement can show claim of right and satisfy adversity for prescriptive easement)
Renner v. Johnson, 2 Ohio St.2d 195 (1965) (implied easement may arise from prior unity of ownership and necessity; does not create or resolve easements by estoppel)
Trattar v. Rausch, 154 Ohio St. 286 (1948) (statement that easement may be acquired only by grant, express or implied, or by prescription)
Fowler v. Delaplain, 79 Ohio St. 279 (1909) (earlier Ohio authority rejecting conversion of license into easement by estoppel under certain facts)