Title: Town of South Hero v. Wood

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

Town of South Hero v. Wood (2004-387); 179 Vt. 417; 898 A.2d 756

2006 VT 28

[Filed 07-Apr-2006]


       NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under
  V.R.A.P. 40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont
  Reports.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions,
  Vermont Supreme Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of
  any errors in order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes
  to press.


                                 2006 VT 28

                                No. 2004-387


  Town of South Hero                             Supreme Court

                                                 On Appeal from
       v.                                        Grand Isle Superior Court


  James Wood, David Fifield, Joyce Fifield       September Term, 2005
  Hal Woods, Stephanie Woods and
  Harlow Frechette, Jr.


  David A. Jenkins, J.

  Paul S. Gillies of Tarrant, Marks & Gillies, Montpelier, for
    Plaintiff-Appellee/Cross-Appellant.

  Roger E. Kohn of Kohn & Rath, LLP, Hinesburg, for
    Defendants-Appellants/Counterclaim  Plaintiffs-Appellants.


  PRESENT:  Reiber, C.J., Johnson, Skoglund and Burgess, JJ., and 
            Allen, C.J. (Ret.),  Specially Assigned

        
       ¶  1.  SKOGLUND, J.   This case turns on the ever-changing location
  of East Shore Road, a town road that runs along Knee Deep Bay in South
  Hero, Vermont.  Over time, Lake Champlain has eroded the shoreline, and
  plaintiff Town of South Hero has responded by moving the road further
  inland onto defendants' land.  In 2000, the Town sought a declaratory
  judgment as to the existence, location, and width of the road, and
  defendants-the four landowners on whose properties the Town claims the
  right-of-way for the road is located-counterclaimed for damages and
  injunctive relief.  The trial court held that a right-of-way for the road
  was created by dedication and acceptance of the changes in the road's
  position until a time just prior to the maintenance work the Town did in
  August of 2000, and that any road work by the Town outside of that
  right-of-way was a taking.  As explained below, we affirm the trial court's
  determination of the location and width of the right-of-way.

       ¶  2.  The roots of this dispute, now submerged in the waters of Knee
  Deep Bay, go back much further than the filing of this action.  Maps dating
  back to 1819 depict a road running along the shore of the bay, and,
  although there has never been a formal laying-out of the road, the parties
  acknowledge its "historical existence."  The court used a 1942 aerial photo
  to fix the original position of the road-now eighty or more feet
  offshore-finding it "more likely than not that the 1942 center line of the
  road has long been the center line of the subject road . . . as it was
  historically dedicated by use."  The court then determined the location of
  the road in 1962, and the parties appear to agree that the Town's movement
  of the road to that location was proper.  The question here is the legal
  significance of the road's post-1962 migrations.  We must determine
  whether, as the Town contends, the right-of-way for the road continuously
  moves along with the incremental changes resulting from erosion and
  maintenance of the roadway, or, as defendants argue, it remains fixed at
  its 1962 position. 
   
       ¶  3.  The evidence reflects that East Shore Road, while not a
  heavily-trafficked thoroughfare, was regularly used as a road for decades. 
  Charles Tourville, a seventy-two-year resident of South Hero, and John Roy,
  a sixty-two-year resident, both testified that they used the road since
  they were boys.  Robert Frechette, the brother of two of the defendants,
  testified that he drove on the road "a couple times a year."  In addition
  to the trial testimony, the record includes sworn statements made by a
  number of residents in October 2000.  Those statements demonstrate that
  people have driven on the road for many decades, and continued to do so up
  until 2000. 

       ¶  4.  Over the years, as the north shore of the bay continuously
  eroded, the Town maintained the road by adding material and cutting trees
  as needed.  The road is seasonal; over the years, the Town has plowed it
  sporadically during the winter, and it has been underwater and thus
  impassable in the spring.  At trial, Mr. Tourville testified that the Town
  opened the road every year from 1966 to 1988 (his entire tenure as road
  commissioner), and Mr. Roy, who became road commissioner in 1990, testified
  that the Town opened the road in the years other than 1996 through 1999.
  (FN1) 
       
       ¶  5.  In 2000, the Town indicated that it was going to perform
  significant maintenance work on the road that would encroach upon
  defendants' property.  On August 21, 2000, defendants' attorney sent a
  letter to the Town objecting to the proposed construction.  Four days
  later, the Town filed the declaratory judgment complaint that began this
  case.  On August 28, 2000, three days after filing the lawsuit, the Town
  began the construction work, which it completed in September 2000.  The
  construction work moved the road further inland, placing most of it between
  100 and 160 feet further inland from its 1942 location, and more than
  twenty-five feet inland from its 1962 location.


       ¶  6.  In September 2000, defendants counterclaimed for damages and
  injunctive relief.  Based on the parties' stipulation, the trial court
  bifurcated the question of the road's location from the issues of damages
  and attorneys' fees.  In 2003, the court held a bench trial to determine
  the location of the right-of-way for the road.  It held that "[t]he
  right-of-way for the road was created by dedication and acceptance," and
  described the right-of-way as "three rods wide, one and one half each side
  of the center line of the traveled portion as it moved slightly up to
  2000."  In other words, the court used the 1962 location of the road as its
  starting point, and held that the right-of-way included the changes made by
  the Town "as dedicated and accepted over the years until 2000." (FN2)  The
  court based its conclusion that defendants dedicated the land on their
  "[l]ong acquiescence in use by the public and allowance by the owners of
  repairs at public expense." 

       ¶  7.  The court rejected the Town's "shifting highway" and "rolling
  easement" theories and held that "[p]art of the 2000 construction by the
  Town is outside of the right-of-way and constitutes a wrongful taking."  It
  pointed out that the Town "must proceed to follow statutory procedures if
  parts of the new roadway are to remain as constructed in 2000" and to pay
  damages for property taken outside the right-of-way.  The court then issued
  a final partial judgment defining the location and width of the
  right-of-way, permanently enjoining the Town from doing any further road
  work on defendants' land lying outside the right-of-way, and setting for
  trial the parties' remaining claims for damages, liability under 42 U.S.C.
  § 1983, and attorneys' fees.  Defendants appealed, and the Town
  cross-appealed.  We address defendant's appeal in Section I and the Town's
  cross-appeal in Section II.

                                     I.
   
       ¶  8.  Defendants argue that the court erred in concluding that the
  right-of-way had moved by dedication and acceptance farther inland from the
  1962 location of the road.  Specifically, they contend that the evidence at
  trial precluded the court from ruling that they intended to dedicate any
  land outside the 1962 roadway for public use, pointing to trial testimony
  describing four discrete incidents.  First, Harlow Frechette, Sr., their
  predecessor-in-title, twice during the 1960s put up barriers to attempt to
  stop people from using the road, both of which the Town removed.  Second,
  in the mid-1970s, defendant David Fifield encountered Charles Tourville,
  then the road commissioner of South Hero, operating a grader on East Shore
  Road.  Mr. Fifield testified that he asked Mr. Tourville what he was doing. 
  When asked at trial if he did anything other than ask Mr. Tourville what he
  was doing, Mr. Fifield responded, "No.  It was quite evident that it
  wouldn't make any difference.  He was not the person to pursue the
  complaint with."  Third, Mr. Fifield testified that in 1991, he walked the
  beach with road commissioner John Roy and complained about the road,
  pointing out cut trees that had been "dumped well beyond a 50-foot
  right-of-way."  Fourth, the minutes of the Town selectboard reflect that
  the Frechettes and Fifields attended an August 5, 1991 meeting "to discuss
  the road being built up in front of their camps" and expressed concern
  about the removal of trees and about the public's use of the beach without
  asking permission of the landowners.  

       ¶  9.  In response, the Town argues that the court correctly concluded
  that defendants' evidence of their unwillingness to dedicate the roadway is
  outweighed by the evidence showing intent to dedicate-namely, defendants'
  long acquiescence in the existence of the road and acceptance of the Town's
  efforts to maintain it.  We agree.
   
       ¶  10.  "Dedication is the setting apart of land for public use,
  either expressly or by implication of law."  Druke v. Town of Newfane, 137
  Vt. 571, 574,