Greenfield Family Trust v. Olive Fountain Land Company, LLC
Annotate this CaseOlive Fountain Land Company, LLC (“Olive Fountain”), and Greenfield Family Trust (“Greenfield Trust”), owned neighboring properties along Lake Coeur d’Alene in Kootenai County, Idaho. Olive Fountain had permission to construct an easement road across Greenfield Trust’s land to access its undeveloped property. However, portions of the construction did not occur along the agreed and specified boundaries of the easement. Additionally, logs from the construction were sold by Olive Fountain’s agent in violation of an earlier easement agreement requiring any trees removed from the right of way to remain on Greenfield Trust’s property. Following a bench trial, the district court determined that by partially constructing a road across Greenfield Trust’s property outside the easement boundaries, Olive Fountain had committed a willful and intentional trespass under Idaho Code section 6-202. The court also determined there was a timber trespass, which entitled Greenfield Trust to recover treble damages from Olive Fountain. However, when addressing civil trespass damages, the court found the testimonial evidence on property damages from Greenfield Trust’s witnesses to be neither credible nor reasonable, and only awarded $50 in nominal damages. Greenfield Trust appealed, arguing that the court erred and abused its discretion in refusing to award damages for the diminution in property value. Finding no such abuse of discretion nor error, the Idaho Supreme Court affirmed.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.