Case ID: ny_224/html/0696-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Per Curiam.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

The City of New Rochelle, Respondent, v. New Rochelle Coal and Lumber Company, Appellant.
    Highways — abandoned when closed for six years.
    A highway which has been closed to travel for its entire width for more than six years ceases to be such.
    
      City of New Rochelle v. New Rochelle Coal & Lumber Co., 173 App. Div. 952, reversed.
    (Argued November 19, 1918;
    decided November 26, 1918.)
    Appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the second judicial department, entered May 16, 1916, affirming a judgment in favor of plaintiff entered upon a decision of the court on trial at Special Term. The judgment in effect ejected the defendant from the possession of a piece of land in the city of New Rochelle, which piece, of land would be within the lines of Echo avenue, in such city, if continued southerly from Cedar road through the appellant’s property, upon the theory and allegation that such piece of land was and is a public highway, and that the defendant’s conceded possession and occupation of it is an illegal obstruction and incumbrance, constituting a public nuisánce, the relief awarded the respondent being in the form of a mandatory injunction restraining the appellant, its officers, agents, attorneys and servants from occupying the said strip of land.
    
      Michael J. Tierney for appellant.
    
      
      Hugh M. Harmer, Mark M. Schlesinger and Walter G. C. Otto for respondent.
   Per Curiam.

Plaintiff failed to offer sufficient evidence to sustain a finding that the locus in quo was an existing highway. The evidence conclusively establishes that for more than six years prior to the commencement of the action the strip of land in suit had been closed to travel-for its entire width. The obstructed section had, therefore, ceased to be a highway. (Highway Law, § 234; Barnes v. Midland R. R. Terminal Co., 218 N. Y. 91, 98.)

The judgment should be reversed and a new trial granted, with costs to abide the event.

His cock, Ch.- J., Collin, Cuddeback, Cardozo, Pound, Crane and Andrews, JJ., concur.

Judgment reversed, etc.