Barber v. Landrum

• Decision Date: 19 May 2023
• Docket Number: CL-2022-0848,CL-2022-0854
• Parties: Jim Barber et al. v. Jeffery K. Landrum Randolph County Commission v. Jeffery K. Landrum
• Court: Alabama Court of Civil Appeals

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Jim Barber et al. v. Jeffery K. Landrum

Randolph County Commission v. Jeffery K. Landrum

Nos. CL-2022-0848, CL-2022-0854

Alabama Court of Civil Appeals

May 19, 2023

Appeals from Randolph Circuit Court (CV-17-900045)

EDWARDS, Judge.

This case involves the status of an unnamed road in Randolph County that begins at a point approximately one mile south of New Hope Church on County Road 5 in Randolph County and runs to a point on the western bank of the Tallapoosa River below where Crooked Creek flows into that river. The point where the unnamed road intersects the western bank of the river is approximately one-and-one-half miles below the R.L. Harris dam.^[1] A "County Road 968" sign was eventually placed near the beginning point of the unnamed road, but, for the sake of clarity, we will refer to the above-described road as "the unnamed road," except as the context otherwise dictates.

These appeals follow this court's decision in Randolph County Commission v. Landrum, 342 So.3d 574 (Ala. Civ App. 2021), which reversed an August 11, 2020, judgment entered by the Randolph Circuit Court ("the trial court") and remanded the case for the trial court to comply with Rule 19, Ala. R. Civ. P., regarding the recipients of property interests from or through C.C Twilley, whose pertinent properties consisted of timberland that abutted the unnamed road.^[2] 342 So.3d at 580. On remand, Jim Caldwell, Peter E. Mari, John F. Mari, Peggy Neumayer, Bodie Caldwell, Scott Caldwell, Willie Caldwell, Sandra East, Lynda Woodall, Mary George Hay, Doris Ragsdale, Felix East, Jr., Mike Twilley, Janice Bryan,^[3] Carol Ann Dewberry, David Twilley, Pamela Wellborn, Amelia Twilley, Suellen Rush, individually and as personal representative of the estate of Don Rush, and Nancy Rush (hereinafter referred to collectively as "the Twilley beneficiaries") filed a motion in the trial court alleging that they were the successors in title to C.C. Twilley through his deceased children, requesting that they be made parties to the action, adopting the pleadings and motions that had previously been filed in relation to their purported interests, and requesting that the trial court enter a judgment based on the trial proceedings that had already occurred rather than conducting a new trial. The trial court granted that motion, added the Twilley beneficiaries as parties to the action, and entered a judgment on June 10, 2022, in favor of Jeffery K. Landrum determining that the unnamed road was a public road and that a part of the unnamed road was a county road.

In appeal number CL-2022-0848, Jim Barber; Jimmy Goss;^[4]Tommy Owens; Kevin Hyatt;^[5] Tallapoosa Timberlands, LLC; Tallapoosa River Hunting Club ("the hunting club"), a nonprofit association; Resource Management Service, LLC ("RMS"); and the Twilley beneficiaries appeal from the June 2022 judgment. The Twilley beneficiaries and Barber, Goss, Owens, Hyatt, Tallapoosa Timberlands, LLC, the hunting club, and RMS are hereinafter referred to collectively as "the private-party defendants." In appeal number CL-2022-0854, the Randolph County Commission ("the Commission") also appeals from the June 2022 judgment.

In July 2016, Landrum purchased 34 acres of real property from David Stephens ("Landrum's property"). Landrum's property abutted Crooked Creek, a tributary of the Tallapoosa River, and was located north and northwest of the unnamed road. Landrum's property did not abut the unnamed road, but the use of that road was necessary for him to access his property using one or more other roads or ways that ran in a northerly direction from the unnamed road through other property owned by the Twilley beneficiaries. We note that Landrum also owned other property abutting Crooked Creek but that property did not share a boundary with the property that he purchased from Stephens.

Based on the evidence presented at trial, when Landrum purchased his property from Stephens, the unnamed road had a County Road 968 sign near its beginning point at County Road 5 and no gate was present across the unnamed road. However, according to Landrum, in the fall of 2016, a gate was installed across the unnamed road a short distance from County Road 5, and the County Road 968 sign was no longer present. The gate remained open for a few weeks but eventually was closed and locked, apparently by the hunting club.

Landrum contacted Stephens about the gate, and Stephens informed Landrum that he had obtained a gate key from the hunting club to use the unnamed road to access his property, which Stephens had visited only three or four times per year when he had owned that property between 1994 and 2016. Stephens testified that he did not recall a gate being absent near the entrance to the unnamed road from County Road 5; instead, he recalled that the gate had been moved further from the entrance in the late 1990s and that it had been open or closed depending on the time of the year, such as during hunting season.^[6] Landrum testified that he had also contacted Burrell Jones, who had been the County Engineer for Randolph County since 1990, about the gate that was erected after Landrum had purchased the Landrum property. According to Landrum, Jones had said that "the [c]ounty hadn't maintained the road in 20 years, and it was closed by abandonment, and he used the word 'prescription.'" Jones admitted at trial that, during his cursory record search, he had found no record indicating that the county had vacated the unnamed road, and his statement to Landrum that the unnamed road had been closed by abandonment supports an inference that the county had considered the unnamed road to be a county road at one time. See Bownes v. Winston Cnty., 481 So.2d 362, 364 (Ala. 1985) (explaining that, in the absence of a proper vacation of a road by a county pursuant to Ala. Code 1975, § 234-1 et seq., or by abutting landowners pursuant to Ala. Code 1975, § 234-20 et seq., "[a] public way or easement of passage which the public has in respect to a highway may be abandoned and thus lose its public character in one of two ways. Nonuse for a period of 20 years will operate as a discontinuance of a public road. Likewise, there can be an abandonment by nonuse for a period short of the time of prescription when there has been the construction of a new highway replacing an old road"). There also was conflicting evidence about members of the public continuing to use the unnamed road to access the Tallapoosa River up until a couple of years before trial and about the county having graded the unnamed road one or more times after 1976 and as recently as 2014.

On July 12, 2017, Landrum filed a complaint in the trial court against Barber, Owens, and Hyatt, who he alleged were members of the hunting club, which leased land (apparently from the Twilley beneficiaries) on which at least part of the unnamed road is located. Landrum sought a declaration that the unnamed road was a public, county road and an injunction requiring the removal of the gate that had been placed across the unnamed road near the intersection with County Road 5.^[7] Landrum alleged that the unnamed road had been in existence as a public road for over 100 years and had been used by the public to access the Tallapoosa River from County Road 5, in addition to being used by landowners to access their respective properties from County Road 5. Landrum subsequently filed an amended complaint.

Barber and Goss own a parcel of land on either side of the unnamed road where it intersects County Road 5, and they leased their land to the hunting club. Goss eventually was added as a defendant in Landrum's action, as was the hunting club. Also, Tallapoosa Timberlands, LLC, which leased property from the Twilley beneficiaries, and RMS, which conducted timber-harvesting operations and management for Tallapoosa Timberlands, LLC, were added as defendants, along with the Commission. The private-party defendants, less the Twilley beneficiaries, who had not yet been made parties in Landrum's action, see Landrum, supra, are hereinafter referred to as "the original privateparty defendants."

The original private-party defendants and the Commission filed answers denying the material allegations in Landrum's complaint and some of the original private-party defendants filed a counterclaim requesting that the trial court declare the unnamed road to be a private road. The trial court held ore tenus proceedings in September 2019. At trial, the original private-party defendants and the Commission argued that Landrum had failed to establish that the unnamed road was a public, county road. They also argued that, if Landrum had established that the unnamed road was a public, county road, the unnamed road had been abandoned through nonuse. In response, Landrum contended that he had established that the unnamed road was a public, county road based on common-law, implied dedication. Landrum also contended that he had established that the unnamed road was a public, county road because "you can see clearly on the 1970 format that that is a public road," presumably referring to Landrum's exhibit 5, which was a copy of a 1974 general highway map of Randolph County that was prepared by the State Highway Department Bureau of Planning and Programming Surveying and Mapping Division in cooperation with the United States Department of Transportation ("the 1974 map"). Landrum further argued that the unnamed road had not been vacated by the Commission and that there was no clear and convincing evidence that it had been abandoned by the public.

After the filing of posttrial briefs, which the trial court had requested, the trial court entered an order on April 7, 2020 declaring that Landrum had established, based on...