City of Caruthersville v. Huffman

• Decision Date: 02 December 1914
• Docket Number: No. 16019.,16019.
• Citation: 171 S.W. 323,262 Mo. 367
• Parties: CITY OF CARUTHERSVILLE v. HUFFMAN et al.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

171 S.W. 323

262 Mo. 367

CITY OF CARUTHERSVILLE v. HUFFMAN et al.

No. 16019.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

December 2, 1914.

1. APPEAL AND ERROR (§ 584) — REVIEW — ABSTRACT — SUFFICIENCY.

Where the dividing line between the record proper and the bill of exceptions clearly appeared in the abstract by a heading "Bill of Exceptions" in large, black-faced capitals, it will not be disregarded on the ground that matters of exception and matters of the record proper were commingled.

2. LIMITATION OF ACTIONS (§ 11) — STATUTES — CONSTRUCTION.

In view of Rev. St. 1909, § 9400, giving to cities exclusive control over all streets and alleys, section 1886, declaring that no statute of limitation shall extend to lands given, granted, or appropriated to any public use, applies to lands included in a street of which a city had possession, though it did not have the legal title.

3. DEDICATION (§ 46) — GRANT — CONSTRUCTION.

In construing plats dedicating land, the courts must give effect to the plain meaning and

intent they exhibit by their outlines as well as their words.

4. DEDICATION (§ 48) — APPROVAL.

Persons to whom property was conveyed by reference to a plat, which attempted to dedicate the streets to the public, adopt the dedication by accepting the conveyance.

5. DEDICATION (§ 35) — ACCEPTANCE — ACTS CONSTITUTING.

Where a plat, by which it was attempted to dedicate streets to the public, was not submitted in such a manner as to constitute a statutory dedication, but, after being recorded and lots sold by reference thereto, the city opened and improved streets as shown by the plat, there was an acceptance of the dedication, and a purchaser could not acquire adverse title by inclosing streets or alleyways, attempted to be dedicated, for the property was devoted to a public use.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Pemiscot County; Henry C. Riley, Judge.

Action by the City of Caruthersville against J. D. Huffman and another. From a judgment for defendants, plaintiff appeals. Reversed and remanded.

Vance J. Higgs and Everett Reeves, both of Caruthersville, for appellant. Arthur L. Oliver, of Caruthersville, for respondents.

BROWN, C.

Ejectment to recover a tract of land in the city of Caruthersville, in said county, 20 feet wide and 100 feet long, on the ground that it is dedicated to public use as an alley. A jury was waived.

There was no substantial dispute as to the facts. While it is not clearly shown in the evidence, it seems to be assumed in argument that on March 22, 1895, the land included in "Ward's First addition of Caruthersville" was within the city limits. On that day the plat was filed, consisting of two tiers of blocks extending in a northerly and southerly direction, five blocks in each tier. On the east side was a street named Carleton avenue. Between the two tiers of blocks was Highland avenue and on the west Cotton avenue. From north to south the cross streets were named George, Neptune, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, and an unnamed street along the south end. Block 5 occupies the southeast corner of the plat, with its two tiers of lots; each lot having 50 feet frontage and a depth of 140 feet. Lots 1 to 6, inclusive, numbered from north to south, fronted on Carleton avenue, while lots 7 to 12, inclusive, numbered from south to north, fronted on Highland avenue. The alley in question extends through the middle of the block from Mercury street on the north to the unnamed street on the south, in the rear of the lots, and is 20 feet wide. A similar alley extends through each block, except the north pair, the north six lots of which front north on George street, with an alley extending east and west in their rear. All the other blocks are identical.

On the date mentioned, William A. Ward and his three sisters, with the husbands of two of them who were married women, filed the plat above described in the recorder's office, duly signed and acknowledged, with the following certificate:

"We, the undersigned, hereby declare the above to be a true and correct plat of Ward's First addition to Caruthersville, Mo., and forever dedicate to the public the streets therein named."

The approval of the common council was not indorsed on the plat, nor was there any evidence of such approval by ordinance. On March 15, 1896, they conveyed lots 5, 6, and 7 of block 5 to the defendant Sarah E. Huffman, wife of her codefendant, by that description. In September following they built a residence on lots 5 and 6, fronting on Carleton avenue, and fenced the three lots, including in the inclosure the land in controversy, being the entire 100 feet of the alley lying in the rear of the two lots on which they built. This inclosure remained up to the time of the trial. Building proceeded in the addition so that, when this suit was tried in 1909, it was "thickly settled." The unnamed street south of defendants' premises was opened and traveled in 1897. All the other streets on the plat were opened and improved by paved or plank sidewalks on each side and by grading, and telephone and electric light poles had been maintained on all of them for a number of years. Carleton avenue had been opened and traveled at the time defendants built their inclosure. The north 200 feet of the alley in...