River Pond Farm, LLC sued to enjoin the appellants from interfering with its alleged easement on the appellants’ property. The appellants counterclaimed to quiet title and, without requesting a jury trial, asked the superior court to submit the matter to a special master pursuant to OCGA § 23-3-63. After both parties filed motions for summary judgment, the special master issued a report finding a prescriptive easement in favor of River Pond. Over an objection by the appellants, the superior court affirmed the special master’s findings, adopted them as its own, and issued a judgment in favor of River Pond. Most of the facts are not in dispute. R. C. Howell died in 1968 owning significant acreage along the Chattahoochee River in Early County. The parties to this suit agree that they are the successors in interest, respectively, of land held by Howell’s two daughters —Louise Howell Gay and Grey Howell Bell —who inherited their father’s land and, in 1972, divided it roughly equally between them. The appellants are trusts, owned by Robert Lamar McGregor, Sr. and Patricia Gay McGregor, that are successors in interest to over 700 acres of land acquired by Patricia’s mother, Louise Howell Gay the McGregor property. And since September 2004, River Pond, an entity formed by Grey Howell Bell’s children, has been the successor in interest to over 700 acres of land located immediately south of the McGregor property that Grey Howell Bell received when the property was divided the Bell property. A road runs from northeast to southwest across the McGregor property to the Bell property, providing a route from County Route 81, a/k/a “Old River Road,” to the Bell property. The road existed in 1968 and before, and it exists essentially unchanged today in the same location;1 but neither the road nor any related easement was mentioned in the deeds that divided the property. The owners of the Bell property, including River Pond, have used the road to access the Bell property since the division, and they maintained the road at their own expense since 1968, all with full knowledge of the McGregors.2 Members of the Bell family also hunted on the McGregor property this entire time, and as far back as when R. C. Howell owned all the land.
The parties’ dispute concerns the exact nature of the origin and development of the arrangement whereby the Bell family used the road and hunted on the McGregor property.
