Case Name: TAYLOR v. BAILEY
Court: Supreme Court of Ohio
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1834-07
Citations: 1 Wright 646
Docket Number: 
Parties: TAYLOR v. BAILEY.
Judges: 
Reporter: Reports of cases at law and in chancery, decided by the Supreme court of Ohio, during the years 1831, 1832, 1833, 1834.
Volume: 1
Pages: 667–668

Head Matter:
TAYLOR v. BAILEY.
Lease — defective good after enjoyment or as a contract — private and public ways.
A writing without seal, though invalid as^ a lease if nothing has been done, may be held good as between the parties, if the lessee has entered and enjoved, or as a mere contract.
A mere lease confers no right of private way, because it describes the land as lying near where the road runs.
A county road is a public not a private way; no private ways are laid out by public officers except township roads.
Where a road has been laid out from point to point and opened and used for a long time upon ground different from that on which the line of the road was'actually run, the travelled road is the public highway.
A way may be established by prescription in Ohio.
Error to the Common Pleas. Taylor and Bailey agreed in writing that Bailey should have the use of thirty acres of land in the northeast corner of his farm, lying between where the road run and the creek, for five years. Under this agreement Bailey entered and enjoyed. After some time Bailey sued Taylor in case and complained that by virtue of the lease he had aright oí private way from Taylor’s mills to the road near one Morgan’s, which had been used as a private way for more than twenty-five years,’and the defendant stopped it up to his injury. On trial of the issue not guilty —the writing being proven, was objected to, because it had no seal, but the court admitted it, and charged the jury it was a valid lease. The records of the county commissioners were then produced and showed the establishment of a public county road between the same points in 1812, which was opened and travelled, though not on the exact-line surveyed for the county road, though it had always been used as a public road. The court was asked to charge the jury that the travelled road, though not on the exact line of the surveyed road, was a public road. This the court refused, but instructed them that the -travelled road, for the purposes of the action, was a private way. The plaintiff had judgment, and for error in law in these opinions, it is now sought to reverse the judgment.
* Hamilton, for the plaintiff,
cited 2 O. 215.
Bell contra.

Opinion:
WRIGHT, J.
The writing, though without seal and invalid as a lease, would, as to the parties, be construed good, if the lessee had entered and enjoyed, or be held good as a mere contract. But whether good as a lease or not, it confers no right of private vjay; nor does the record disclose any evidence from which a way of necessity could be maintained as is argued. The road laid out by the county authority was a public road, though erroneously pronounced a private one by the court. There can be no private way laid out under our laws except by the township trustees. It is argued that there can be no way by prescription in this county, because of our recent settlement: we think otherwise, but the proof in this case was, that this road was always used as such. The ro.ad opened and used, we think a public road, though not on the exact line of the survey, and the court erred in charging other-wise. The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings.