Easements and exclusive possession

The case of Copelund v Greenhalf has puzzled students of land law for over forty years. It is usually taken as authority for the proposition that a claim to an easement will fail if it amounts, in effect, to a claim of exclusive possession of the servient land. The plaintiff, the owner of a strip of land leading to an orchard, had sought to restrain the defendant, a wheelwright with premises across the road from the orchard, from leaving vehicles awaiting repair on the strip of land. The defendant countered that he and his father had used the strip (save for enough space to allow access to the orchard) for storage of vehicles for 50 years; he therefore claimed a prescriptive easement, under s 2 of the Prescription Act 1832, to do so.