Village of Buffalo v. Harling

• Decision Date: 22 July 1892
• Citation: 50 Minn. 551,52 N.W. 931
• Parties: VILLAGE OF BUFFALO v HARLING.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

50 Minn. 551

52 N.W. 931

VILLAGE OF BUFFALOvHARLING.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

July 22, 1892.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

1. A complaint alleging that certain land had been dedicated to a specified public use is sufficient, even though it does not state whether such dedication was effected in the manner prescribed by statute or as at common law.

2. A trustee to whom lands are patented under the town site law of 1844 has no power to dedicate such lands to public use.

3. A town plat not showing the location of the platted lands is ineffectual as a statutory dedication.

4. A village whose streets and public grounds have been by law placed under the control of its authorities, who are given power to prevent the incumbering or obstruction of the same, may maintain an action to enjoin the erection of a building for private use on public ground.

Appeal from district court, Wright county; CANTY, Judge.

Action by the village of Buffalo against John Harling to restrain him from erecting a blacksmith shop on certain land claimed as a street. From a judgment for plaintiff, defendant appeals. Reversed.

James C. Tarbox and W. H. Culkin, for appellant.

W. H. Cutting, (Wendell & Pidgeon, of counsel,) for respondent.

DICKINSON, J.

The village of Buffalo is situated on the northerly side of Buffalo lake. The land on which the village is situated we assume to have been in the year 1860 patented by the United States to one Jackson Taylor, the president of the town council, as he is described in the patent, and to his successors, “in trust for the several use and benefit of the occupants of the town site of Buffalo,” under the town site act of congress of May 23, 1844. Along the shore of the lake, and between the water and that part of the village which appears to have been platted into blocks and lots, is a narrow strip of land consisting in part of the sloping bank of the lake, and also of some level ground wide enough for a street, between such sloping bank and the platted blocks and lots. The defendant was about to erect a blacksmith shop on this strip of land, partly on the level tract and partly on the sloping bank, when this action was commenced to restrain him from so doing, the plaintiff claiming that this land, to the width of 60 or 66 1/2 feet from the platted blocks, and which is designated as “Lake Street,” had been dedicated to the use of the public for the purposes of a street, and that the land between Lake street and the water, on which the shop was about to be erected, had been dedicated to the use of the public as a pleasure ground,-a “promenade.” The issue of fact in the case was as to whether there had been any such dedication. Upon this issue the court found in favor of the plaintiff. On this appeal the defendant calls in question the correctness of such findings.

We are unable to avoid the conclusion that some of the findings of fact bearing materially upon this issue cannot be sustained. It did not appear from the complaint whether the plaintiff relied upon a common-law or a statutory dedication, and it is not quite clear from the findings how far the conclusion rests upon the theory of there having been a statutory dedication; but it seems that the particular findings to which we shall presently refer were intended to express the conclusion that a dedication was made by Taylor in 1856, by a platting of the land then made. How far this may have affected the further findings and the conclusion of the court we cannot determine. Before referring more particularly to the findings,we will add that the court was right in holding the complaint to sufficiently...