Opinion ID: 1292834
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Adverse Possession/Equitable Estoppel.

Text: As stated above, the district court rejected the plaintiffs' equitable estoppel claim, but held the plaintiffs had acquired title to the streets under the doctrine of adverse possession. It has long been the rule in Iowa that the doctrine of adverse possession does not apply to governmental entities. Fencl, 620 N.W.2d at 816 n. 5. Thus, proof of adverse possession alone will not defeat a city's interest in land. Consequently, the district court's judgment cannot be affirmed upon a theory of adverse possession. We turn, then, to the plaintiffs' alternative claim of equitable estoppel. The species of equitable estoppel required to establish title to property claimed adversely to a governmental entity includes three elements: (1) conduct on the part of the city indicating an abandonment of its interest, including actual nonuse for more than ten years; (2) a claim of ownership through adverse possession; and (3) unfair damage to the claimant if the city were permitted to assert its interest. Id. at 816. While we have serious doubts that any of these elements are established by the record before us, we limit our discussion to the first requirement  abandonment. The plaintiffs rely on this court's decision in Brewer v. Claypool, 223 Iowa 1235, 275 N.W. 34 (1937), for the proposition that when private rights have been acquired by adverse possession, an abandonment may be presumed. 223 Iowa at 1238, 275 N.W. at 35. If this statement was ever an accurate announcement of Iowa law, it is no longer. We have held in a long line of cases since Brewer that [i]n order to prove abandonment, actual acts of relinquishment accompanied by an intention to abandon must be shown. Allamakee County v. Collins Trust, 599 N.W.2d 448, 451 (Iowa 1999); accord City of Marquette v. Gaede, 672 N.W.2d 829, 834 (Iowa 2003); Marksbury v. State, 322 N.W.2d 281, 286-87 (Iowa 1982); Town of Marne v. Goeken, 259 Iowa 1375, 1382, 147 N.W.2d 218, 224 (1966). Mere nonuse is not enough. Fencl, 620 N.W.2d at 816; accord Kelroy, 232 Iowa at 168, 5 N.W.2d at 17 (mere non-user will not of itself defeat the public title to a street); Kuehl v. Town of Bettendorf, 179 Iowa 1, 9, 161 N.W. 28, 32 (1917) (same). Thus, the failure of a small town to improve a street before public convenience requires it, will not amount to either an abandonment or an estoppel. Kuehl, 179 Iowa at 9, 161 N.W. at 31; accord Wolfe v. Kemler, 228 Iowa 733, 740, 293 N.W. 322, 325 (1940) (noting that not `all the streets shown upon [a] plat will be immediately opened and used,' and that it might be many years before future growth and development requires that the platted streets be opened and improved (citation omitted)); McClenehan v. Town of Jesup, 144 Iowa 352, 357, 120 N.W. 74, 76 (1909) (stating to create [an] estoppel something more must be shown than a failure to demand the opening of the public way before the growth or expansion of the town has made such demand reasonably necessary). Upon our review of the record, we find no affirmative evidence of the city's intent to abandon the streets dedicated in the Second Union Addition. To the contrary, the city's actions over the years, while intermittent, were always consistent with its claim of ownership of the streets. These actions included the city's specification of the grade of the streets, its renaming of the streets, its vacation of a portion of one street, its maintenance of the gravel road, its delivery of garbage and recycling service over the gravel road, and its construction of Adams Street with radii curbs to facilitate connection with the Second Union Addition streets. The plaintiffs, having failed to prove abandonment, cannot rely on the doctrine of equitable estoppel to support their claim of ownership.