Opinion ID: 891606
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Width of the Road

Text: {58} The State asserts, in summary fashion, that the Road should be 60 feet in width. It bases this argument on a misreading of NMSA 1978, § 67-5-2 (1903). Because that statute does not apply to the road in question, we affirm the district court's determination on remand that the Road is 24 feet wide. {59} The district court concluded on remand from the Court of Appeals I opinion that the Road is 24 feet wide. The Court of Appeals II court affirmed. State ex rel. King, No. 26,194, slip op. at 5. The State argues on appeal that because Section 67-5-2 provides that public highways laid out in this state shall be sixty feet in width, the Road can only be of that same width. {60} The State misreads the statute as it has been interpreted previously by our Court of Appeals. In Quintana v. Knowles, 115 N.M. 360, 363, 851 P.2d 482, 485 (Ct.App. 1993), the Court of Appeals held that a road established by public use is not laid out within the meaning of Section 67-5-2. In State ex rel. Baxter v. Egolf, 107 N.M. 315, 319, 757 P.2d 371, 375 (Ct.App.1988), the Court of Appeals held that a highway established by prescription was not laid out within the meaning of Section 67-5-2. {61} The Baxter Court held that Old Bishop's Lodge Road in Santa Fe, while formally established as a state highway in 1919, was established as a public roadway much earlier, by prescriptive use. 107 N.M. at 318, 757 P.2d at 374. When the road became a state highway, no width was specifically stated. Id. at 319, 757 P.2d at 375. While not taking a specific position on what the term laid out meant, the Baxter Court nonetheless concluded that the statutory width did not apply to a road established by use, not by statutory authority. Id. {62} Similarly here, the Road was a public thoroughfare long before it was officially established as a state road. The State acknowledges that the Road existed, as part of the Santa Fe Trail, even before New Mexico became a state. The State fails to show that when the Road was officially established as a state highway, state officials gave it any particular width. Evidence in the record supports the district court's conclusion that the Road is 24 feet wide. Like the road in Baxter, the Road is not subject to the width requirement of Section 67-5-2.