Jackson Browne considers appeal to court ruling

APTOS >> Singer/songwriter Jackson Browne, who recently lost a legal land dispute with neighbors to his long-time Porter Gulch Road property, is considering an appeal, according to his legal team.

Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Timothy Volkmann ruled earlier this month on a 2019 lawsuit regarding who is allowed use of a road stretching between the two properties.

Plaintiffs Christopher Wheeler and Sarah Claus took Browne to court initially due to a fence set up between their undeveloped land and Browne's paved driveway. They said Browne's driveway had been granted in the 1960s as an easement allowing use of the shared point of ingress and egress. The suit later developed into a case where the judge was asked to interpret if a decadesold easement granted by an earlier owner actually referred to another logging road on the WheelerClaus property, rather than Browne's driveway.

Volkmann's ruling supported that the Browne driveway was the easement in question. While Volkmann also critiqued the driveway's fitness for legal access road use due to concerns about its width, slope and available areas for fire truck turnouts, he added that such issues were not under his purview to enforce.

In a statement provided to the Sentinel by Browne's legal team of Lawrence Iser, Edward Newman and Patricia Millett, attorneys said Browne always has taken the position that the driveway to his home winds uphill through his property and does not provide safe and suitable fire and emergency access to serve an additional home using the driveway. Attorneys said they were gratified by Volkmann's support for that position in his ruling and expected “that the County will not issue a building permit to the Wheelers based on using Mr. Browne's driveway as their fire and emergency access.”

The attorneys' statement said that Browne had sought to avoid litigation by offering “substantial sums of money either to improve their own existing road to their building site or to sell their property and build elsewhere,” to no avail. Wheeler-Claus attorney J. Kenneth Gorman, of Penrose, Chun & Gorman LLP, confirmed that settlement offers were made, but that they were considered insufficient to bring the logging road up to proper code.

“The case was originally all about the easement and that was decided clearly in our favor,” Gorman said. “Our other position from the beginning was that this really should not have been in court: This should have been something that was decided by county fire and planning and zoning.”

Gorman said his clients were vindicated by the ruling and expected to proceed through the county permitting process to seek mitigations that would remedy the access road's shortcomings.

Attorneys for the plaintiff and defendant disagreed on whether the case should have been heard by a judge — as it was in this case — or by a jury. Browne's attorneys said they “respectfully believe the Court erred in denying a jury trial as to this issue.”

“Mr. Browne is considering an appeal regarding the location of the easement,” his legal team wrote.