Curtis v. GoebelCurtis v. Goebel
- Reporters:
- Before:
- Tate
Plaintiff Curtis sought and obtained judgment declaring to be a public road an outlet from his 61-acre tract across defendants’ home place to the blacktopped highway about 900’ feet north of plaintiff‘s land. Defendants were further enjoined from interfering with plaintiff‘s peaceful use of said outlet road, they having padlocked a gate at the entry to it from the highway shortly before this suit was filed.
Defendants appeal this adverse judgment.
The sole question before this court concerns whether the trial court erred in holding that this outlet passageway had been tacitly dedicated to public use under
Plaintiff produced the testimony of the two police jurors who had consecutively represented the ward in which the road in
Defendants’ witnesses did not controvert this testimony but merely testified that they themselves had not seen the parish grader working the road. Defendants themselves corroborated the further testimony of plaintiff‘s witnesses that about a year before the suit two loads of parish gravel had been placed from the blacktop highway to defendants’ home, which was 660 feet south thereof. (Defendants testified they did not request such parish help, nor did they protest it. It is argued that such furnishing of parish materials was in the nature of a personal or political favor, rather than being a working or maintenance.)
We think the evidence supports the District Court‘s determination that the road in question became a public road under
Counsel for appellants points out that the police jurors and road superintendent testifying could not estimate the total cost to the parish in man-hours and/or money of the maintenance and working involved, including the building of the bridge. The witnesses, in fact, admitted that such expenditure could not have been great, since the outlet passage is chiefly a woods road at the end of which only two or three families lived during the 1930‘s (the last leaving in 1942), but along which no one but defendants in their recently built home now live. (Plaintiff‘s tract, bought by him three years before suit, is used by him for the raising of cattle.)
Defendants’ counsel therefore ably urges that the insubstantial and relatively minor outlay of public monies and equipment could not convert this woods trail into a public road.
However, we think that although no very large amounts of public funds were spent upon the road in question, nevertheless the police jury‘s contribution over the requisite period of time was sufficient to constitute a maintenance and working thereof by the public body without objection by the landowner such as under
Further, with regard to the nature of the roadway in question, such public contribution to its upkeep was substantial: the evidence indicating that such parish maintenance as was furnished to the roadway constituted actually the major maintenance or working thereof during far longer than the requisite three years. By reason of this circumstance, among others, the present case is distinguished from Bordelon v. Heard, La.App. 1 Cir., 33 So.2d 88, relied upon by defendants-appellants, where the road was held not to have been dedicated when it had been graded by public equipment just “on a few occasions“, 33 So.2d 91, many years before the suit.
For the above and foregoing reasons, the judgment appealed from is affirmed.
Affirmed.