Landowner’s Two Parcels Sit on Opposite Sides of Outlet Road — Then the Town Installs Guardrails Across Her Frontage and a Court Dismisses Her Suit

Photo credit: AI-generated image created using ChatGPT. Illustrative only.

There’s a special kind of frustration that comes with owning land on both sides of a road. You’re not asking for anything fancy—just the ability to walk back and forth like you always have. Then one morning, crews show up, and by the end of the day there’s a steel barrier where your “normal” used to be.

That’s the dispute at the heart of the court decision in Draina v. Town of Ballston, where a Ballston Lake-area landowner said newly installed guardrails along Outlet Road effectively blocked her from freely crossing between two parcels she owns on opposite sides of the roadway. She sued. The trial court tossed the case, and New York’s Appellate Division (Third Department) agreed: dismissal stands.

Two parcels, one road, and a routine that suddenly changed

Dolores Draina owns property near Ballston Lake in the Town of Ballston, Saratoga County. Her land includes two parcels separated by Outlet Road, a road leading to a public fishing pier and a parking area by the lake.

For a property owner in that layout, day-to-day access matters. Crossing the road isn’t just about convenience—it’s how you move tools, check on things, keep an eye on both sides, and use your own land as a single place instead of two disconnected pieces.

Draina said she had been crossing Outlet Road without obstruction to access both parcels. That’s the baseline she relied on—until the Town changed the road edge.

The guardrails went in for parking control, but landed right in front of her

In April 2024, the Town installed guardrails along portions of Outlet Road. The stated reason in the court record was to deter vehicles from parking along the shoulder to unload kayaks and other equipment closer to the pier.

On paper, that’s a safety and traffic-management move: stop shoulder parking, reduce chaos near the pier, keep cars from edging into soft shoulders. In real life, it means long stretches of metal rail that reshape how people physically move along and across the road.

Part of that installation included guardrails along the frontage of Draina’s properties. She said she didn’t even know the project was coming until the first day construction started—one of those moments homeowners dread, because you’re instantly behind the curve with no time to object before the work is done.

“Just leave an opening”—and the answer was no

After the rails went up, Draina asked the Town to create an opening so she could pass between her parcels without having to climb over the barrier. Town officials ultimately rejected that request, citing safety concerns.

That denial matters because the practical problem she described wasn’t theoretical. She claimed that instead of simply crossing the road, she now has to jump or step over the guardrails while also watching for traffic. If you’ve ever tried stepping over a guardrail in regular shoes—let alone carrying anything—you know how fast it shifts from “annoying” to “this is going to end badly.”

She took the dispute into the legal system. She served a notice of claim, appeared for a hearing under General Municipal Law § 50-h, and then filed suit against the Town, certain town officials, and Saratoga County.

She threw a lot of claims at the wall—and the court said none of them stuck

Draina’s lawsuit alleged that the guardrails amounted to an illegal taking under New York’s Eminent Domain Procedure Law (EDPL). She also brought a stack of other claims: trespass, conversion, negligent misrepresentation, public and private nuisance, unjust enrichment, civil conspiracy, and discrimination.

Both the Town and the County moved to dismiss before answering the complaint. The trial court granted the motions, and the appellate court affirmed.

The biggest fact that kept coming up: it was undisputed that the guardrails were installed entirely within the Town’s right-of-way and did not encroach on her property. That single detail undercut multiple theories that require an intrusion onto the plaintiff’s land or control over the plaintiff’s property.

On the EDPL claim, the appellate court essentially said: a taking case needs an “acquisition” of a property interest. Here, there was no allegation the Town acquired any interest in her land, and the guardrails sat in the Town right-of-way. Even if the rails interfered with how she used her parcels, the court said that isn’t an EDPL “acquisition.” The court also noted she didn’t plead an alternative claim for compensation for a de facto taking where eminent domain procedures weren’t invoked.

The trespass and conversion claims fell for similar reasons. Trespass requires an unauthorized entry on another’s land, but the rails weren’t on her land. Conversion deals with identifiable personal property, not real estate access issues, and the complaint didn’t allege interference with any personal property.

Her negligent misrepresentation claim didn’t survive because the complaint didn’t identify a false statement of fact—only that officials said they would consider her request for openings—and it didn’t allege the kind of special relationship that creates a duty to give correct information.

Unjust enrichment didn’t work either, because her framing sounded like a property tax assessment challenge (she suggested the Town benefited by diminishing property value while taxing as if nothing changed). The court said the exclusive path for that is tax certiorari, and she didn’t allege she took the prerequisite steps like filing a grievance.

Her civil conspiracy claim failed because conspiracy isn’t a standalone tort in this context—it needs an underlying actionable tort, and the core tort she alleged (taking her right to land) wasn’t viable as pleaded.

And on discrimination, the court said the complaint was conclusory. It claimed she was treated differently from two neighboring landowners, but didn’t allege facts showing they were similarly situated, and didn’t tie any differential treatment to an impermissible classification.

The County got out for a blunt reason: she admitted it wasn’t involved

One detail in the record will feel familiar to anyone who has watched local-government disputes: sometimes people sue everyone in the ZIP code just to be safe. Here, the County was a named defendant, but at her General Municipal Law § 50-h hearing, Draina conceded the County played no role in installing the guardrails or in the project itself.

That kind of admission is hard to recover from. If the County didn’t do the thing you’re suing about, keeping them in the case becomes an uphill climb.

The homeowner takeaway people keep circling back to: right-of-way is its own world

This is the part that tends to get strong reactions whenever road projects meet private property lines. A lot of homeowners assume “frontage” means control. But a public right-of-way can extend beyond the paved road, and towns can place infrastructure—like guardrails—inside it.

In this case, the courts leaned heavily on the undisputed placement: inside the Town’s right-of-way, not on her deeded land. That one boundary line effectively turned a personal access problem into something the court viewed as a non-compensable inconvenience under the theories she pleaded.

The other thing that jumps out is timing. Draina said she learned about the project on the first day of construction. By the time a homeowner is reacting to active work crews, options narrow fast, and every request (like “leave me a gap”) becomes a negotiation instead of a condition of the plan.

The guardrails are still there, and the dismissal means she doesn’t get damages or an order forcing changes through this lawsuit. For property owners with split parcels, it’s a rough reminder that “I used to cross here” can be real, routine, and still not translate into a winning claim—especially when the hardware sits on the public side of the line.