Douglas County v. Briggs

Douglas County brought a declaratory judgment proceeding to determine whether it was required to compensate defendants for loss of access from defendants’ property to an established abutting county road which had been converted by the county into a throughway. The trial court concluded that severing defendants’ rights of access constituted a compensable taking and entered judgment for defendants. The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment upon the basis that an easement of ingress and egress is a property right which government may not extinguish without just compensation and that ORS…