Opinion ID: 829412
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: public roads by dedication

Text: For a road to become public property, there must be (a) a statutory dedication and an acceptance on behalf of the public, (b) a common-law dedication and acceptance, or (c) a finding of highway by public user. Village of Grandville v Jenison, 84 Mich 54, 6568; 47 NW 600 (1890) (discussing these three modes). Although it is undisputed that the road at issue here was dedicated by statute and accepted on behalf of the public, we will consider aspects of both common law and statutory dedications to gain insight into the similarities and differences between these modes of dedication.
A valid common-law dedication of land requires (a) intent by the property owner to offer the land for public use, (b) an acceptance by, and maintenance of the road by, public officials, and (c) use by the public generally. Bain v Fry, 352 Mich 299, 305; 89 NW2d 485 (1958). If these are present, the dedication is sufficient regardless of form. Badeaux v Ryerson, 213 Mich 642, 647; 182 NW 22 (1921). With regard to an intention to dedicate, all facts and circumstances bearing on the question are considered. See Lee, 14 Mich at 18. Acceptance is similarly fact-specific. It “may be either formal, by resolution or ordinance, or informal ‘through user or expenditures of public money for the repair, improvement and control of the highway.’” Rice v Clare Co Rd Comm, 346 Mich 658, 665; 78 NW2d 651 (1956) (citation omitted). 11 “A dedication must be accepted within a reasonable time or the offer will be considered as withdrawn.” Cass Co Bd of Supervisors v Banks, 44 Mich 467, 476; 7 NW 49 (1880). Offers to dedicate are considered withdrawn when the owners of property use it in a way that is inconsistent with public ownership. Lee, 14 Mich at 18. What qualifies as an inconsistent use depends on the circumstances of each case. See Field v Village of Manchester, 32 Mich 279, 280 (1875), in which the Court considered the fact that the landowner had erected buildings, fenced in an enclosure, and planted fruit trees in a portion of a disputed street as evidence of use inconsistent with dedication and public ownership. “Common-law dedications do not ordinarily convey the fee. In fact, under the strict rule they never do.” Patrick, 120 Mich at 211. “‘By the common law, the fee in the soil remains in the original owner, where a public road is established over it; but the use of the road is in the public. The owner parts with this use only.’” People, ex rel Dep’t of Conservation Dir v LaDuc, 329 Mich 716, 719; 46 NW2d 442 (1951), quoting Barclay v Howell’s Lessee, 31 US (6 Pet) 498, 513; 8 L Ed 477 (1832). Accordingly, as this Court stated in Loud v Brooks, 241 Mich 452,456; 217 NW 34 (1928): We hold the correct rule to be that a conveyance of land bounded on a highway, street, or alley carries with it the fee to the center thereof, subject to the easement of public way, provided the grantor at the time of conveyance owned to the center and there are no words in the deed showing a contrary intent . . . .
To create a public road by statutory dedication, two elements are required: (a) “a recorded plat designating the areas for public use, evidencing a clear intent by the plat 12 proprietor to dedicate those areas to public use, and [b] acceptance by the proper public authority.” Kraus v Dep’t of Commerce, 451 Mich 420, 424; 547 NW2d 870 (1996). While this Court has stated that the “acknowledgment and recording of the plat had all the force and effect of an express grant,” Kirchen v Remenga, 291 Mich 94, 109; 288 NW 344 (1939), public acceptance is always required, Miller, 31 Mich at 448-449. In Miller, Justice COOLEY explained why public acceptance is necessary regardless of whether a recorded plat is considered a grant or offer to dedicate: Without venturing to express any definite opinion whether such a plat should be regarded as a grant or as a mere offer to dedicate, it is very clear to our minds that it is one or the other, or perhaps partakes of the nature of both, and that some action by competent public authority is essential before it can have the intended effect. If the plat is only an offer to dedicate, the offer must be accepted or it may be withdrawn, and after any considerable lapse of time must be regarded as no longer open for acceptance, unless the circumstances are such as to make the offer continuous. On this subject our own decisions have been full and explicit. But if the plat is regarded as a grant, it is equally necessary that there should be acceptance. No one can thrust a grant upon another without his assent. It is true, acceptance of a grant may be presumed when it is beneficial, but there can be no conclusive presumption that a grant of land for a public way is so. [Id. at 449-450 (citations omitted).] Under any other rule, duties and financial responsibilities would be imposed on the government for dedicated roads that it never knowingly or intentionally accepted. Equally undesirably, land would become waste property, owned or developed by no one. These concerns were addressed in Miller, 31 Mich at 449: As the execution and recording of the plat is wholly a private matter, subject to no public supervision whatever, this view would enable proprietors of lands to lay out so many streets and avenues as they might see fit, and wherever their private interests should determine; and whether the streets were desired by the public or not, the private ownership would 13 be displaced. Either one of two consequences must then follow: the public must be under some obligations to treat the land as constituting a street, and be subject to such liabilities as that fact would impose, or the land must remain waste property, in the hands of an owner who cannot use it for the purposes of profit, and who at the same time refuses to put it to the purposes contemplated in making the plat. For this reason, a statutory dedication requires the same acceptance by the public as a dedication at common law. As in a common-law dedication, before acceptance, an offer to dedicate may be withdrawn formally,7 or informally by using “the property in a way that is inconsistent with public ownership.”8 If a platted roadway is never accepted, the public acquires no rights in the roadway, and “the owners of the lands fronting thereon, may again take possession of the property, and treat it as though, in all respects, no offer of dedication had ever been made.” Field, 32 Mich at 281. This overview of common-law and statutory dedications illuminates the principal similarities and differences between these modes of dedication. To create a public road at common law or by statute, there must be a clear intent on the part of the owner to dedicate, along with an acceptance by the public within a reasonable time. By either 7 An offer may be formally withdrawn by vacating the plat, Gregory v Ann Arbor, 127 Mich 454, 458; 86 NW 1013 (1901), or by formal resolution of a governmental body vacating the street, Plumer v Johnston, 63 Mich 165, 172; 29 NW 687 (1886), overruled on other grounds by Loud, 241 Mich at 456. See MCL 560.255b for the requirements for withdrawals by plat proprietors in a statutory dedication under the current platting statute, the Land Division Act (LDA), MCL 560.101 et seq. 8 Kraus, 451 Mich at 431, citing Lee, 14 Mich at 18. Now, under the LDA, lands dedicated to public purposes in recorded subdivision plats are presumed by statute to be accepted, absent timely and proper withdrawal by the plat proprietor within 10 years after the plat is first recorded. MCL 560.255b; Kraus, 451 Mich at 426 n 2. 14 mode, “the question of dedication is one largely of intention . . . .” Weihe v Macatawa Resort Co, 198 Mich 334, 341; 164 NW 510 (1917). The difference is how the requisite intent-- the animus dedicandi (the intent to dedicate)9-- is made manifest. In a statutory dedication, “the intent of the owner is clear, and has been formally manifested in the plat recorded.” Rice, 346 Mich at 664. By contrast, in a common-law dedication, the intent of the owner is implied from “all such acts connected with, or relating to the premises, tending to show the design and object of the dedication which is alleged . . . .” Beaubien, 2 Doug at 276. In this way, the intent to dedicate in a statutory dedication is easier to prove and the dedicator is estopped from denying the dedication by virtue of the requirement that the plat be recorded. Simply put, the landowner either did or did not properly record a plat and, if the former, is bound by this act. A clear and prescribed method of evidencing intent is especially important in this area of the law, because other aspects of public dedication-- namely, public acceptance and questions of withdrawal-- are highly fact-specific.10 9 See Beaubien, 2 Doug at 276. 10 See Alton v Meeuwenberg, 108 Mich 629, 634-636; 66 NW 571 (1896), in which the Court included an illustrative excerpt of the fact-intensive jury instructions required to determine the intent of the parties with respect to a putative highway: “How did [the putative dedicator] act, at the time and afterwards? What use did he make of the lands, as showing an intent upon his part of dedicating the land? How was the land treated by the public authorities, with reference to its being a highway? Did they open a highway all along the line? Or what portion of it did they open? . . . These are questions for you to determine, from the evidence in the case; and, unless you believe, from the evidence, that they did, then that certain portion never became a public highway.” 15