118 P. 1013 | Or. | 1911
Opinion by
The petition states that the route of the road is to follow, as near as practicable, the line of the survey heretofore made by H. E. Merryman, county surveyor of Wallowa County, in the matter of a road petitioned for by John Anthony et al., the field notes and plat of which are filed in the county clerk’s office, and referred to for a more particular description of the route, and defendant insists that this reference makes the description in the petition definite. But we are of the opinion that it does not aid the petition. As already stated, the object of the petition is to give the owner of land liable ’to be affected by the location of the road notice of the proceeding, and the notice must be complete in itself for that purpose. It cannot require every landowner in the vicinity of a proposed road to go to the county seat and search the record, and find whether his land is liable to be affected; and, even if he did so, he could not determine the fact from the' surveyor’s notes without the aid of one skilled in such descriptions. It is said in Elliott, Roads and Streets (Section 377) :
“Where a petition is required, it constitutes the foundation of the proceedings. It must therefore contain such facts as will * * inform the parties interested of the rights and lands affected.”
“One of the purposes of the statutory requirements of the petition is, no doubt, to place interested parties in the possession of information so distinct and definite as that they might know with reasonable certainty in what manner and to what extent they will be affected by the establishment of the proposed road.”
And in Section 380 of Elliott it is said:
“The description of the line and character of the road should, at least, be so accurate and certain as to convey reasonable information to all parties. * * It is obvious that the description should be reasonably definite and certain, since the interested parties are entitled to notice and to information that will at least enable them to locate the line of the proposed way.”
In Woodruff v. Douglas County, 17 Or. 314, 323 (21 Pac. 49), it is said that a county road cannot be laid out, unless the petitioners have in mind the distinct points referred to, and so designate them in their petitions that a person of ordinary intelligence need not mistake their location. The statute requires this to be done by the petition and notice, and they must be sufficient in themselves for that purpose, and reference therein to some other paper for information that the statute says they must contain is insufficient. Therefore the petition and notice were insufficient to give the county court jurisdiction, and defendant’s objection thereto should have been sustained.
The decree of the lower court is reversed, and the road proceeding dismissed. Reversed.