Case ID: ohio-ca_28/html/0063-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Houck, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

SCHOOL PROPERTY CLAIMED TO HAVE BEEN ABANDONED.
    Court of Appeals for Knox County.
    Ira Wheaton et al, as Members of the Board of Education of Union Township, v. George H. Ferenbaugh.
    Decided, October 25, 1917.
    
      Abandonment — Relinquishment Must be Intentional — Not Shown by Mere Non-Use for a Period Less Than the Statute of Limitations.
    
    Suspension of school for a period of three years, in the school district in which the school property involved in the instant case is located, does not constitute abandonment on the ground of non-user.
    
      Charles L. Bermont, Prosecuting Attorney, for plaintiff.
    
      F. O. Levering and P. A. Berry, contra.
   Houck, J.

This is an appeal case and is prosecuted to this court from the common pleas court of this county. 'The basis of the action is one for injunction, and was submitted to this court upon an agreed statement of facts.

We do not deem it necessary in order to decide the real question involved in this ease to set out in this opinion the agreed .statement of facts, as we think it sufficient to say that .applying the propositions of law pertinent and applicable to the .facts agreed upon, it leaves but one question to be determined by the court, which is a question of fact, namely, as to whether or not said board of education has ceased to use said premises for school purposes.

An examination of the agreed statement of facts shows that the school in the school district in which said premises are located has been suspended for about three years by the board of education, and the question for solution is, does this fact constitute such a non-user as would be held to be an abandonment of said school property for school purposes which would warrant, justify and authorize the defendant to take possession of said premises ?

Abandonment, as we understand it, means an intentional relinquishment of .a known right, and to constitute abandonment there must be an intent and an actual failure to use. Non-user alone, at least short of the period of the statute of limitations, unless otherwise provided by contract, is not sufficient, as we deem it, to .prove an abandonment; but non-user, if continued for such a length of time, coupled with other acts of a character which would within themselves tend to show an intention on the part of the owner not to resume or repossess himself of the thing whose use is relinquished, may constitute an abandonment.

Applying these rules to the conceded facts in this ease, we are bound to find and do find that the claim of the defendant is not well taken, and therefore the plaintiff is entitled to the relief prayed for in his petition.

Judgment for plaintiff as prayed for in his petition. Injunction made perpetual. This ease is remanded to the common pleas court for execution as to costs.

Powell, J., and Shields, J., concur.