Green v. Belitz
| Decision Date | 10 October 1876 |
| Citation | 34 Mich. 512 |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
| Parties | Morris Green v. Henry Belitz |
Submitted on Briefs June 21, 1876
Error to Oakland Circuit.
Judgment reversed, with costs, and a new trial granted.
A. C Baldwin, for plaintiff in error.
C & W. N. Draper, for defendant in error.
Belitz brought an action of trespass on the case to recover special damages sustained by him on account of an alleged obstruction of a public highway by defendant.
There was evidence given on the part of the plaintiff tending to show that the road in question had been used as a highway for more than twenty years; that it was four rods wide up to 1863, when defendant fenced it in, leaving it less than twenty-six feet wide; that in 1866, and again in 1869, defendant drew and deposited stone in the road, which caused the snow to accumulate in drifts upon the road; that plaintiff had, without fault on his part, broken his wagon and sleighs upon these stones, and was otherwise injured on account of the snow drifts, as he had no means of ingress or egress to his farm except by this road. Evidence was also given by the plaintiff tending to show that a survey of this road had been made and recorded, and that highway labor had been performed thereon in 1871 and 1872, and that plaintiff had worked out his road tax upon this road under defendant's directions as overseer of highways. On the part of the defendant evidence was given tending to show that the road in question was not a public highway, but a private way, used under an agreement made with a former proprietor of the land owned by plaintiff; that no public road had ever been laid out over this line, and that the land had never been dedicated or condemned for a highway.
The plaintiff claimed, and the court at his request charged, that if the jury should find the way in controversy was, on the 15th day of March, 1861, a road not recorded, and that the same had been used a period of ten years or more, then the same by force of the statute (§ 1268, C L.) became and was a public highway. The force and effect of this instruction was, that a mere private way, used as such for a period of ten years, became by force of the statute a public highway. The statute cannot receive such a construction. The legislature never intended by any so summary a process to convert private into public highways. This section has no relation to private ways. It...
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Stickley v. Sodus Tp.
...the view to convert private roads into public ways. It was designed to remedy defects in establishing and recording highways. Green v. Belitz, 34 Mich. 512. Among the cases by counsel for plaintiff as conclusive of their position is Ellsworth v. City of Grand Rapids, 27 Mich. 250. That case......
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Missaukee Lakes Land Co. v. Missaukee County Road Com'n, 10
...here involved had automatically converted them from private to public roads under C.L. 1948, § 221.20, Stat.Ann. § 9.21. See Green v. Belitz, 34 Mich. 512; Irving v. Ford, 65 Mich. 241, 32 N.W. 601; Stickley v. Township of Sodus, 131 Mich. 510, 91 N.W. 745, 59 L.R.A. 287. Hence, no particul......
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