Opinion ID: 1794109
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Manifest Acceptance

Text: Another issue in this case is the means by which the public authority may manifest acceptance of property dedicated to public use. The Court of Appeals looked to the McNitt Act, 1931 P.A. 130, which required each board of county road commissioners to take over all township highways and incorporate them into one county-wide highway system over a five-year period. The act has been repealed, amended, and reenacted a few times. It is important to this case only to the extent that it provided the framework for the Roscommon County Road Commission to pass a resolution taking over township roads on April 2, 1937. That resolution provided: Whereas, the McNitt-Holbeck-Smith Bill ... requires that all dedicated streets and alleys in recorded plats outside of incorporated villages or cities be taken over on April 1st, 1937, by County Road Commissions in Michigan, for maintenance by said County Road Commissions, Therefore, be it Resolved, that the Roscommon County Road Commission take over for County Maintenance, under the McNitt-Holbeck-Smith Bill, being Act 130, P.A.1931, all dedicated streets and alleys in recorded plats within Roscommon County, outside of the Village of Roscommon, that being the only incorporated City or Village within Roscommon County, for a total mileage of such streets and alleys of 170.236 miles. [Emphasis added.] In the instant cases, the Court of Appeals held: [A] McNitt Act acceptance is sufficient, in and of itself, to constitute an acceptance of an offer of dedication that has remained open and, thereby, to complete the dedication and create an irrevocable public interest in a roadway. [205 Mich.App. at 44-45, 517 N.W.2d 756.] The panel relied on Rice v. Clare Co. Rd. Comm., 346 Mich. 658, 78 N.W.2d 651 (1956), and In re Vacation of Cara Avenue, 350 Mich. 283, 86 N.W.2d 319 (1957). Such reliance was misplaced. In Rice, the McNitt resolution expressly referred to the specific plat in which the street at issue had been dedicated. Id. at 664, 78 N.W.2d 651. [3] Likewise, in Cara Avenue, the McNitt resolution expressly referred to the specific plat in which the avenue at issue had been dedicated. Id. at 286, 86 N.W.2d 319. [4] Accord In re Petition of Bryant, 323 Mich. 424, 429, 35 N.W.2d 371 (1949) (the resolution referred to specific streets). Therefore, it can logically follow from Rice, Cara Avenue, and Bryant, that a McNitt resolution can only qualify as formal acceptance where it expressly identified a platted road or the recorded plat in which the road in dispute was dedicated. Contrast Eyde Bros. Development Co. v. Roscommon Co. Bd. of Rd. Comm'rs, 161 Mich.App. 654, 656, 411 N.W.2d 814 (1987), which considered the same 1937 McNitt resolution by the Roscommon County Road Commission and held that a McNitt resolution, standing alone, was insufficient. [5] We note that a county cannot take over privately owned streets by such a McNitt resolution. Missaukee Lakes Land Co. v. Missaukee Co. Rd. Comm., 333 Mich. 372, 376, 53 N.W.2d 297 (1952). It is also fundamental that private property cannot be forced on a public authority without its consent. Miller, 31 Mich. at 449. Given that the McNitt act required county road commissions to take over township roads, we believe that, with respect to a McNitt resolution that was only general in nature, the instant panel's holding would run the risk of imposing duties and financial responsibilities on a county for dedicated roads that the county did not knowingly or intentionally accept. This very prospect was discussed in Miller: 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 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. [Id. at 449.] For these reasons, we hold that a McNitt resolution that did not expressly identify the platted road in dispute or the recorded plat in which that road was dedicated is insufficient to effect manifest acceptance of the offer to dedicate the road to public use. Hence, we must review the facts of each case before us to determine if and when the defendants manifested acceptance of the platted roads in dispute by other means.