The Court found that the plaintiff had acquired a prescriptive easement over a strip of the defendant's land where a driveway had been constructed beyond the boundaries of a registered carriageway easement, on the basis of open and uninterrupted use for over 20 years. The Court rejected the claim for an implied ancillary right to a wider easement, holding that a reasonable bystander would not have expected the grant of the registered easement to carry with it a right to use additional land beyond its marked boundaries. The construction of a fence that narrowed the driveway to the registered easement width constituted a real and substantial interference with the prescriptive easement, particularly given the inability to reverse trailers and increased difficulty of vehicle access, and the Court ordered partial relocation of the fence. The judgment expressly noted that the High Court's pending decision in Les Denny Pty Ltd v Valmorbida may affect the recognition of prescriptive easements in Victoria.
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