Roberts v. Matthews

• Decision Date: 03 June 1903
• Citation: 34 So. 624,137 Ala. 523
• Parties: ROBERTS ET AL. v. MATTHEWS.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

34 So. 624

137 Ala. 523

ROBERTS ET AL. v. MATTHEWS.

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 3, 1903

Appeal from City Court of Talladega.

Suit by T. J. Matthews against Kate Q. Roberts and others, praying for the abatement of a nuisance. From a decree overruling a motion to dismiss for want of equity and overruling a demurrer, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

The bill alleged that complainant was seised in fee of a certain lot in section 16, platted by the school commissioners pursuant to the authority of Laws 1828, p. 31, and acts subsequently enacted; that said commissioners, after the survey and plat was made, in the performance of their duties as such, proceeded to sell lots with reference thereto whereby such streets and alleys, if they had not previously become dedicated and created such by reason of such survey and plat, did become such by reason of such sales of lots that the value of complainant's lot is largely dependent upon the open and unobstructed use of certain streets and the square at their intersection; that defendants have obstructed said streets and square by running a fence entirely around the said square, and are attempting to exclude all persons therefrom except such as they may give license to enter thereon, thereby so obstructing the said streets and square as to prevent entirely the passage of vehicles and to prevent the convenient passage of foot passengers, and are preventing the free unimpeded use thereof as a highway to the complainant and the public generally, thereby maintaining a nuisance in such obstruction, to the injury of the public generally, and to the special injury of the complainant by reason of his ownership of the said lot No. 7, whereon he desires and intends to build a public inn, to which the public will be invited to resort, of which purpose and intention the respondents are informed and advised; and that said lot No. 7 is practically valueless for said purpose as long as said nuisance caused by the obstruction of the said streets and square is continued.

Blackwell & Agee and Knox, Dixon & Burr, for appellants.

Edmund H. Dryer, for appellee.

DOWDELL J.

The bill in this case was filed to abate an alleged public nuisance. That courts of equity have jurisdiction in such matters is a proposition not open to question. The averments of the bill as to ownership and special damage are sufficient to authorize its maintenance by the complainant individually. Whaley v. Wilson, 112 Ala. 627, 20 So 922; 9 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law (2d Ed.) pp. 63, 64. It is well settled by decisions of this court that, where a person plats land and lays off lots according to such plat, and makes sale of one or more of such lots with reference thereto, he irrevocably dedicates the land designated thereon as streets and alleys, highways, squares, and commons to the public for public uses. Western Railway of Ala. v. Ala. Grand Trunk R. Co., 96 Ala. 278, 11 So. 483, 17 L. R. A. 474; Harn v. Dadeville, 100 Ala. 202, 14 So. 9; Sherer v. Jasper, 93 Ala. 530, 9 So. 584; Reed v. Mayor & Aldermen of Birmingham, 92 Ala. 348, 9 So 161; Evans v. S. & W. R. R. Co., 90 Ala. 54, 7 So. 758; City of Demopolis v. Webb, 87 Ala. 659, 6 So. 408; Webb v. City of Demopolis, 95 Ala. 116, 13 So. 289, 21 L. R. A. 62; Douglass v. Montgomery, 118 Ala. 607, 24 So. 745, 43 L. R. A. 376; Avondale Land Co. v. Avondale, 111 Ala. 527, 21 So. 318. The land in question, which was surveyed and platted, and laid off in lots, was school land, being the sixteenth section of the township, and was so surveyed and platted for the purpose of sale by the school commissioners in 1834, under the act of January 15, 1828 (Laws 1828, p....