Case Title: KEITH SARE v. SHERIDAN COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 1989-12-19T00:00:00Z

Document:
KEITH SARE v. SHERIDAN COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS1989 WY 222784 P.2d 593Case Number: 89-162Decided: 12/19/1989Supreme Court of Wyoming
KEITH SARE, APPELLANT 
(DEFENDANT),

v.

SHERIDAN COUNTYBOARD 
OF COUNTYCOMMISSIONERS, APPELLEE 
(PLAINTIFF).

Appeal from the District 
Court, SheridanCounty, James N. Wolfe, 
J.

Micheal K. 
Shoumaker, Sheridan, for 
appellant.

Matthew F. 
Redle, SheridanCountyAtty., for appellee.

Before CARDINE, C.J., and THOMAS, URBIGKIT, MACY and 
GOLDEN, JJ.

MACY, 
Justice.

[¶1.]     AppelleeSheridanCounty Board of CountyCommissioners filed an action against Appellant Keith 
Sare, seeking to enjoin him from maintaining fences, gates, and a leach field on 
a street dedicated to SheridanCounty. The district court granted a 
summary judgment in favor of the Board of County 
Commissioners.

[¶2.]     We 
affirm.

[¶3.]     Sare presents the 
following issue for our review:

1. Can Keith Sare 
maintain gates across the right of way for Lodore Avenue to exclude the general public 
until Sheridan Coun[]ty decides to construct, maintain and use Lodore 
Avenue?

[¶4.]     The record in this case 
reveals that on December 15, 1988, the Board of County Commissioners filed a 
complaint with the district court, alleging that Louvina Smith platted a 
subdivision in SheridanCounty, which the Board of County 
Commissioners approved and established on September 1, 1936. The Board of County 
Commissioners asserted that the subdivision contained streets which Smith 
dedicated for public use and that Sare, without authority, constructed and 
maintained fences, gates, and a leach field on a dedicated street named 
Lodore 
Avenue. The complaint further alleged that Sare's 
gates and fences obstructed public access on the street, and it sought temporary 
and permanent injunctive relief for removal of the 
obstructions.

[¶5.]     Sare admitted that 
Smith dedicated the street for public use. He asserted, however, that the Board 
of County Commissioners had orally granted his father, Sare's predecessor in 
interest, permission to construct a gate across the street and that the Board of 
County Commissioners was estopped from claiming relief for Sare's use because: 
(1) the road had not been used by the public and would not be used by the public 
in the future; (2) the Board of County Commissioners had not constructed or 
maintained the road in the past and refused to maintain it in the future; (3) 
Sare and his father maintained the road for thirty years; and (4) Sheridan 
County has vacated other roads in the immediate area. Sare also stated in an 
affidavit that his father constructed the road which exists on the street; that, 
after Sare's requests, the county road superintendent refused to remove snow off 
the street; and that his leach field was not located on the 
street.

[¶6.]     In addition, the 
affidavits provided by the parties and the answers to Sare's request for 
admissions reveal the following facts. Lodore Avenue serves as a boundary between 
Sare's property and Jack and Annabelle Moody's property. Sometime in 1988, Sare 
fenced off a gate in the fence separating the Moodys' property and Lodore Avenue. The 
Moodys have also been prevented from using the street to enter their property 
because Sare placed gates on the street, which he occasionally padlocked. The 
Board of County Commissioners stated that it has no plans to complete 
construction of Lodore 
Avenue and that it will not maintain the street 
except when necessary to reduce an imminent and immediate threat of life or 
property.

[¶7.]     Both parties moved for 
a summary judgment. On June 7, 1989, the district court found that Sare had 
moved a fence which previously existed between the street and the Moodys' 
property and ordered:

(1) * * * If the fence 
line as now constructed is on the boundary line between the Moody property and 
County right-of-way, it may remain provided that the Defendant build into the 
fence a gate located between the right-of-way and the Moody property in the same 
location it was in the fence before it was reconstructed. In the event the 
existing fence is not upon the correct boundary line between the Moody property 
and the right-of-way line, then the Defendant will be required to reconstruct 
the fence on the correct boundary line again providing for a gate between the 
right-of-way and the Moody property in the same location, or approximately the 
same location, as it was in the previously existing fence.

(2) Mr. Sare will be 
enjoined and restrained from placing any gates or obstructions in the 
right-of-way provided that the County agrees with Mr. Sare to pay one half (1/2) 
of the cost of constructing a fence between the Sare property and the County 
right-of-way. Until such time as the County agrees to pay half of the costs of 
constructing such fence, then the Sares can continue to maintain the fences and 
gates as they presently exist on the right-of-way provided that such gates 
cannot be locked and such gates must be maintain[ed] in such a manner that the 
public can easily open and close said gates and gain access back and forth along 
the dedicated and existing right-of-way.

This appeal 
followed.

[¶8.]     We have articulated the 
standard of review for a summary judgment many times. Teton Plumbing and 
Heating, Inc. v. Board of Trustees, Laramie County School District Number One, 
763 P.2d 843 (Wyo. 1988); Albrecht v. Zwaanshoek Holding En Financiering, B.V., 
762 P.2d 1174 (Wyo. 1988). In Jones Land and Livestock Co. v. Federal Land Bank 
of Omaha, 733 P.2d 258, 263 (Wyo. 1987), we stated:

[T]he burden is on the 
moving party to demonstrate that there is no genuine issue of material fact 
before a motion for summary judgment should be granted. However, once the movant 
has established a prima facie case, the burden then shifts to the opposing party 
to come forward with competent evidence of specific facts countering the facts 
presented by the movant. General allegations and conclusory statements are not 
sufficient.

(Citation 
omitted.) See also Pace v. Hadley, 742 P.2d 1283 (Wyo. 
1987).

[¶9.]     The parties do not 
dispute that Smith dedicated the street for public use when she filed a plat for 
a subdivision.1 A dedication is defined 
as

"the devotion of property 
to a public use by an unequivocal act of the owner, manifesting an intention 
that it shall be accepted and used presently or in the future. The intention of 
the owner to dedicate and acceptance thereof by the public are the essential 
elements of a complete dedication. Thus it is vital to a dedication of property 
to public use that it is to be forever 
and irrevocable after acceptance, and that it be for a public 
use."

City of 
Evanston v. Robinson, 702 P.2d 1283, 1286 
(Wyo. 1985) 
(emphasis added) (quoting 11 E. McQuillin, The Law of Municipal Corporations § 
33.02 at 636 (3d ed. 1983)). This Court has established the principle that, once 
a road becomes a public road, the public has a vested right to use it, and it 
"cannot be vacated [or abandoned] without compliance with the appropriate 
statutes." SheridanCounty v. Spiro, 697 P.2d 290, 303 (Wyo. 1985). See also 
Board of County Commissioners, CarbonCounty v. White, 547 P.2d 1195 
(Wyo. 1976).2 There is nothing in the record 
indicating that Lodore 
Avenue was vacated.

[¶10.]  Irrespective of the validity of Smith's 
dedication, Sare contends that the Board of County Commissioners should be 
estopped from protesting about his gates and fences because the Board of County 
Commissioners granted his father permission to build a gate and because the 
Board of County Commissioners has failed to construct or maintain the street. 
While this Court has stated that the doctrine of equitable estoppel applies to 
municipal corporations, Rohrbaugh v. Mokler, 26 Wyo. 514, 188 P. 448 (1920), we recently 
said:

Equitable estoppel should 
not be invoked against a government or public agency functioning in its 
governmental capacity, except in rare and unusual circumstances and may not be 
invoked where it would serve to defeat the effective operation of a policy 
adopted to protect the public.

Big Piney Oil 
& Gas Company v. Wyoming Oil and Gas 
Conservation Commission, 715 P.2d 557, 560 (Wyo. 1986).

[¶11.]  Sare has failed to set forth any rare and 
unusual circumstances in his materials opposing the Board of County 
Commissioners' motion for summary judgment which would invoke the application of 
estoppel. There being no genuine issue of material fact, the Board of County 
Commissioners is entitled to summary judgment as a matter of 
law.

[¶12.]  Affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1 Wyo. Stat. § 34-12-104 
(1977) provides:

The acknowledgment and 
recording of such plat, is equivalent to a deed in fee simple of such portion of 
the premises platted as is on such plat set apart for streets, or other public 
use, or is thereon dedicated to charitable, religious or educational 
purposes.

The 1936 version 
of § 34-12-104 is the same as the current statute. Wyo.Rev.Stat. § 116-203 
(1931).

2 Wyo. Stat. §§ 34-12-106 
to -109 and 24-3-101 to -127 (1977) provide for vocation of plats, streets, 
alleys, and highways.

URBIGKIT, Justice, 
dissenting.

[¶13.]  Although not realistically addressed by 
the litigants and consequently not considered by the majority as a dispositive 
issue, I would reverse and dismiss the original complaint for failure to state a 
claim pursuant to W.R.C.P. 12(b)(6) and 12(h)(2). This is a case of first 
impression for Wyoming where the Sheridan 
County Board of CountyCommissioners undertook litigative 
responsibility for access on an undeveloped platted street in a rural 
subdivision after a contest between adjoining landowners developed. Cf. Ruby 
Drilling Co., Inc. v. Billingsly, 660 P.2d 377 (Wyo. 1983); Thomas v. Jultak, 68 Wyo. 198, 231 P.2d 974 (1951); Kinsella v. Farmers' Lumber 
Co., 38 Wyo. 13, 264 P. 87 (1928); Ashford v. 
Walters, 160 Ga. 350, 127 S.E. 758 (1925); and 
Hougland v. Perdue, 361 S.W.2d 291 (Ky. 1962).1 This is not a case where a general 
public use exists and the governmental agency acts to restrain interference, 
Blair v. Archer County, 192 S.W.2d 573 (Tex.Civ.App.), rev'd on other grounds, 
145 Tex. 102, 195 S.W.2d 348 (1946), nor is this a case where the county seeks a 
remedy to provide a present public use, Douglas County v. Umpqua Valley Grange, 
Inc., 45 Or. App. 739, 609 P.2d 415 (1980); Town of BasicCity v. 
Bell, 114 Va. 157, 76 S.E. 336 
(1912).

[¶14.]  I cannot find any basis for either 
Sheridan County directly or acting through the membership of the Board of County 
Commissioners to become involved as a real party in interest to litigate access 
rights within an undeveloped rural subdivision where the platted street is 
neither developed nor has past or future responsibility for development and 
public utilization to be assumed by the Sheridan County Board of County 
Commissioners. Dedication of the subdivision roadway for public use neither 
vests fee title in the Sheridan County Board of CountyCommissioners nor responsibility and right 
for control unless obligation for development, maintenance and control is 
undertaken as a public roadway or county highway.2 1 B. Elliott & W. Elliott, Law 
of Roads and Streets § 129 at 151 (4th ed. 1926). See 1 B. Elliott & W. 
Elliott, supra, § 168 at 195 which states that "[o]ne of the principal 
indications of acceptance [by the governmental instrumentality] is that of 
improving or repairing the road or street." See also Koontz v. Town of Superior, 746 P.2d 1264 (Wyo. 1987).

[¶15.]  It is clear both by statute and our 
precedent that the dedication does not vest title in the Sheridan County Board 
of County Commissioners, Ruby Drilling Co., Inc., 660 P.2d 377, nor makes the 
undeveloped platted street property of the county for liability and maintenance 
responsibility, including right of conveyance. Payne v. City of Laramie, 398 P.2d 557 (Wyo. 1965). Dedication is the commitment for 
public use. Town of Moorcroft v. Lang, 761 P.2d 96 (1988), reh'g granted 779 P.2d 1180 (Wyo. 1989). A right of use for that public 
purpose is created. City of Evanston v. Robinson, 
702 P.2d 1283 (Wyo. 1985). The Sheridan County Board of 
County Commissioners become the trustee for exercise of that public 
responsibility, Payne, 398 P.2d 557; Ruby Drilling Co., Inc., 660 P.2d 377. 
Compare Gregory v. Sanders, 635 P.2d 795 (Wyo. 1981), which exists as an 
anathema in contrarily addressing the effect of a plat dedication as cogently 
recognized in the special concurrence of Justice Rooney in Ruby Drilling Co., 
Inc. See Chapman v. Greenville Chamber of Commerce, 127 S.C. 173, 120 S.E. 584 
(1923), where the court determined that the right of control came to be vested 
in the city by legislative action. "The dedication was not to Greenville county, but to the public at large, though the 
land is situated in the county of 
Greenville and in the city of Greenville." Id. at 
586.

[¶16.]  Furthermore, unless the county undertakes 
to create a county road, platting without development does not impress that 
responsibility and authority including development, maintenance, snow removal as 
well as controlled use. County road case law and statutes as a separate subject 
are not involved here. SheridanCounty v. Spiro, 697 P.2d 290 
(Wyo. 1985); Board of County Com'rs, 
CarbonCounty v. White, 547 P.2d 1195 (Wyo. 1976); Board of County Com'rs, SheridanCounty v. Patrick, 18 Wyo. 130, 104 P. 531 (1909), reh'g denied 18 Wyo. 130, 107 P. 748 
(1910).3

[¶17.]  The rights of Jack and Annabelle Moody to 
litigate with Keith Sare about the platted but undeveloped Lodore Avenue, which 
in present use constitutes an access cul-desac, is not questioned. I find no 
basis, however, for Sheridan County or its Board of County Commissioners to 
become involved in the dispute until the Sheridan County Board of County 
Commissioners become willing at the minimum to develop and maintain the platted 
street not only for the two disputing neighbors, but as a county roadway for the 
public in general. Otherwise, every platted but undeveloped street and alley in 
every subdivision in Wyoming immediately becomes the responsibility 
of either the Board of County Commissioners, if rural, or the city or town, if 
within an incorporated area.

[¶18.]  This significant increase in duty and 
financial exposure is neither justified by Wyoming statute nor precedent. I find that the 
rights to an undeveloped platted street are vested only in subdivision tract 
owners until developed for public use or until the governmental agency assumes 
responsibility by construction, operation, or maintenance for that purpose. 
Obviously, as stated in appellant's brief in this case, the Sheridan County 
Board of County Commissioners were only a stalking horse in filed complaint for 
the actual litigants, Jack and Annabelle Moody, to contest with Keith Sare. 
Stalking horse status does not necessarily create a real party in interest nor 
properly defines a statement of a litigable claim. It is clearly established 
that SheridanCounty and its Board of 
County Commissioners are presently disinterested in the development of 
Lodore 
Avenue as a public roadway. They only, and in my 
opinion wrongly, litigate to secure adjudication of rights between two 
neighboring landowners. Dedication to the public should not create general 
responsibility in the public entity until responsibility for construction, 
maintenance and control as a public roadway is undertaken. City of Evanston, 702 P.2d  at 
1286. This undeveloped street, until sometime hereafter to be appropriated for a 
public passage, is certainly not a county roadway. George W. Condon Co. v. Board 
of CountyCom'rs, NatronaCounty, 56 Wyo. 38, 103 P.2d 401 (1940). In practical 
operation at present or perhaps for topographical reasons for a long future 
time, this case presents only a cul-de-sac private access controversy between 
Sare and Moody. Jultak, 231 P.2d 974.4

[¶19.]  Without assuming responsibility for the 
public usage, I perceive no real party in interest status for the Sheridan 
County Board of CountyCommissioners and conversely, where the 
agency does interject itself litigatively between adjoining tract owners in a 
largely undeveloped rural subdivision, responsibility for public access by 
maintenance and control could likely follow. Here, where the Sheridan County 
Board of CountyCommissioners only litigate 
a private interest, I find the public status for the exercise of their 
responsibility to be absent. Consequently, I dissent.

FOOTNOTES

1 The author of 2 B. 
Elliott & W. Elliott, Law of Roads and Streets § 1175 at 1673 (4th ed. 1926) 
(footnote omitted) states:

It may well be that some 
private use of the way may be permitted without impairing the rights of the 
public or of abutting owners, and where it is reasonable to infer that the 
public and the abutters have not surrendered their rights, it can not be justly 
assumed that the way has been abandoned, although the private use of it may be 
very considerable. It is to be remembered, too, that the rights of the public 
are seldom guarded with the vigilant care with which owners of private property 
guard their own rights, and acts or omissions which might weigh heavily against 
individual owners can not always be assigned much force against the public. 
There is, therefore, a clear and valid reason for discriminating between public 
and private rights.

See Parker v. 
City of St. Paul, 47 Minn. 317, 50 N.W. 247 
(1891) and Emanuelson v. Gibbs, 49 N.C. App. 417, 271 S.E.2d 557 
(1980).

2 Something less than a 
complete "pictorial jigsaw puzzle," Town of Moorcroft v. Lang, 779 P.2d 1180, 
1188 (Wyo. 1989) (Thomas, J., dissenting), is provided by Wyoming law in 
defining the title effect of road and street dedications. The results seem 
eschewed in designation applied whether directed to private usage, Ruby Drilling 
Co., Inc., 660 P.2d 377, Jultak, 231 P.2d 974; Tissino v. Mavrakis, 67 Wyo. 560, 
228 P.2d 106 (1951); Kinsella, 264 P. 87; public responsibility, Koontz v. Town 
of Superior, 746 P.2d 1264 (Wyo. 1987); George W. Condon Co. v. Board of County 
Com'rs, Natrona County, 56 Wyo. 38, 103 P.2d 401 (1940); rejecting public 
access, Gregory v. Sanders, 635 P.2d 795 (Wyo. 1981); vacation and resale, Payne 
v. City of Laramie, 398 P.2d 557 (Wyo. 1965); Gay Johnson's Wyoming Automotive 
Service Co. v. City of Cheyenne, 367 P.2d 787 (1961), reh'g denied 369 P.2d 863 
(Wyo. 1962); Smith v. Duke, 257 Ala. 86, 57 So. 2d 550 (1952); or mineral rights 
development, Town of Moorcroft v. Lang, 761 P.2d 96 (1988), reh'g granted 779 P.2d 1180 (Wyo. 1989); City of Evanston v. Robinson, 702 P.2d 1283 (Wyo. 
1985).

If something can be 
derived which is right-side up within the terminology of Justice Thomas, it is 
the Payne rule in Gay Johnson's Wyoming Automotive Service Co., 367 P.2d 787 
which was retained in Morad v. Brown, 549 P.2d 312 (Wyo. 1976) and sustained in 
Ruby Drilling Co., Inc., 660 P.2d  at 379-80 (footnote 
omitted):

In Tissino v. Mavrakis, 
67 Wyo. 560, 
228 P.2d 106 (1951), we held that the language of the statute intending the 
platting of a subdivision, and the sale of lots in accordance therewith, 
constituted a public dedication of the streets which are shown upon the plat. We 
also held that the platting and recording of a subdivision in accordance with 
the statutes resulted in the county or city acquiring fee title to all streets 
and ways set out therein.

We modified the above 
holding in Tissino v. Mavrakis, supra, in two later cases that had to do with 
the power of municipalities to sell or transfer property formerly dedicated to 
the public through operation of the statute. In Gay Johnson's Wyoming Automotive 
Service Co. v. City of Cheyenne, Wyo., 367 P.2d 787 (1961) and Payne v. City of 
Laramie, Wyo., 398 P.2d 557 (1965), we held that the intent of the language of § 
34-115, W.S. 1957 (predecessor to § 34-12-104, W.S. 1977) was not to vest the 
city or county with fee title to the land underlying a street or alley but 
rather the terms of the statute merely conveyed to the public authority a title 
in trust for the public's benefit. This position was reiterated in Morad v. 
Brown, Wyo., 
549 P.2d 312 (1976).

These cases at least 
stand for the proposition that the language of present § 34-12-104, W.S. 1977, 
was intended to grant the public an interest in streets and ways set out on a 
properly platted and recorded subdivision map.

Paraphrased from 
a much earlier case, it was said that "[i]n the case in hand, [Lodore Avenue], the 
street in question, is shown to exist almost wholly in the contemplation of the 
mind." Mayor of Brigantine v. Holland Trust Co., 35 A. 344, 346 (N.J. 1896). The 
proper litigants here were the two subdivision property owners who contested 
personal rights of access provided by the plat dedication. Tissino, 228 P.2d 106.

3 The Board of 
CountyCommissioners have two distinct responsibilities for 
roadways situated outside of incorporated towns and not included in the 
Wyoming state 
highway system. In first responsibility is the construction, control and 
maintenance of county roads. W.S. 24-1-101. That responsibility for such roads 
as designated and established, W.S. 24-1-102(b), constitutes one of the 
principal operational responsibilities statutorily mandated as a duty of the 
Board of County Commissioners. W.S. 24-1-104, 24-1-105, and 24-1-111 within 
those duties are to be compared with the operational function for establishment, 
vacation and alteration of county highways, W.S. 24-3-101 through 24-3-127, with 
continued maintenance which is to be compared to the adjudicative responsibility 
to establish a private road but not to maintain it, W.S. 24-9-101 through 
24-9-103.

Completely 
distinguishable from the foregoing county highway responsibilities of the Board 
of County Commissioners is the trustee responsibility as the responsible public 
agency when an area is subdivided and platted with streets and alleys dedicated 
to the public pursuant to W.S. 34-12-101 through 34-12-115. In this separate 
function, the Board of County Commissioners have a right, but not the inevitable 
responsibility to assume an obligation for construction, control and 
maintenance. When a public interest responsibility has not been assumed, private 
controversies about access are properly left to private litigants. Otherwise, 
the question is created about a public agency assuming a public authority and 
denying a concurrent public responsibility. This can 
include:

[T]he duty of keeping the 
dedicated property open, in repair, and free from obstructions, nuisances, or 
unreasonable encroachments which destroy, in whole or in part, its use as a 
public thoroughfare, and it is liable for injuries caused by neglect to do 
so.

26 C.J.S. 
Dedication § 55 at 540 (1956) (footnotes omitted).

4 If the issue is to be 
more narrowly defined within the doctrine of standing, the rule then questions 
whether the litigant has a real interest in the action brought and in its 
outcome. Campbell v. Wyoming Development Co., 55 
Wyo. 347, 100 P.2d 124, reh'g denied 55 
Wyo. 347, 102 P.2d 745 (1940). The Illinois court has 
recently

defined standing as 
requiring "`some injury in fact to a legally recognized interest.'" (In re 
Estate of Burgeson (1988), 125 Ill. 2d 477, 486, 126 Ill.Dec. 954, 532 N.E.2d 825, quoting Clazewski v. Coronet Insurance Co. (1985), 108 Ill. 2d 243, 254, 91 
Ill.Dec. 628, 483 N.E.2d 1263.) In deciding whether a party has standing, a 
court must look at the party to see if he or she will be benefitted by the 
relief granted. (See 59 Am.Jr.2d Parties § 30 (1987).) Standing is a component 
of justiciability, and therefore must be defined on a case-by-case basis. 
Burgeson, 125 Ill. 2d  at 485, 126 Ill.Dec. 954, 532 N.E.2d 825.

In re Marriage 
of Rodriguez, 131 Ill. 2d 273, 137 Ill.Dec. 78, 545 N.E.2d 731, 734 (1989). 
"Standing to sue is jurisdictional and can be considered at any time in course 
of litigation." Spratt v. Security Bank of Buffalo, Wyo., 654 P.2d 130 (Wyo. 
1982).