Opinion ID: 1440779
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Acceptance of 1928 Offer

Text: When the 1928 offer to dedicate the paper street for public use was made, New Hampshire law required that, to be effective, the offer had to be accepted within twenty years. See RSA 231:51 (1982) (amended 1989). We assume, without deciding, that, as the parties assert, the twenty-year period ran from the date upon which the last lot was sold pursuant to the subdivision plan. See Duchesnaye v. Silva, 118 N.H. 728, 731, 394 A.2d 59 (1978). The trial court found, and the parties do not dispute, that the last lot was sold pursuant to the 1928 subdivision plan in 1951. Thus, to prevail, the Plonskis had to prove that the offer was accepted by 1971. The Plonskis concede that the Town has never formally accepted the offer to dedicate the paper street to public use. Accordingly, we confine our analysis to whether the trial court erred when it found that there was no implied acceptance of the paper street for public use by 1971. Based upon our review of the record submitted on appeal, we hold that this finding is supported by the evidence and is not erroneous as a matter of law. The trial court credited the testimony of Roberta Stearns, who testified that, between 1942 and 1963, the entire area shown on the 1928 subdivision plan was basically [her] playground. She and other neighborhood children would just be all over, riding their bikes or walking, and that teenagers used the area to park. She testified that people accessed Chapman Brook by way of two paths in the area of the paper street. These paths were not dirt roads because they [weren't] used that often. Photographs of the area from 1953 and 1961 failed to depict the paths about which Stearns testified. The trial court also credited the testimony of Malcolm Gilman, who has lived in the area off and on since 1919. He testified that the entire area was open and that there was no designated roadway or path where the paper street is now located. He asserted that this area was an open area or a field or a sand pit, if you want to call it that. There was nothing on it. Based upon this testimony, the trial court reasonably could have found that the land upon which the paper street is now located was not impliedly accepted by the Town for public use before 1971. To constitute implied acceptance by the Town, the use by the public must be unequivocal and consistent with the purpose of the dedication. Cunningham & Tischler, Dedication of Land in New Jersey, 15 Rutgers L. Rev. 377, 398 (1961); see San Francisco v. Canavan, 42 Cal. 541, 554 (1872) ([A]cceptance is generally established by the use by the public of the land for the purpose to which it had been dedicated.). Here, the use of the land underneath the paper street for recreational purposes or for parking was insufficient to establish acceptance of the street for use as a public road. See Kiernan v. Primavera, 109 N.J.Super. 231, 262 A.2d 910, 916 (Ch.Div.1970) (use by public of property as a parking lot was insufficient to show acceptance of property for public use as a street). The Plonskis contend that the use of the one-rod right of way by their predecessors-in-title and invitees constituted use of the paper street by the public and, therefore, implied acceptance by the Town. We will assume, without deciding, that, as the Plonskis assert, [p]ublic use of even part of a proposed street's length constitutes acceptance by public user for the entire length. Even so, we hold that use by the Plonskis' predecessors-in-title and their invitees of the one-rod right of way was insufficient, as a matter of law, to establish acceptance of the paper street by public use. To establish acceptance by public use, the Plonskis had to demonstrate that the paper street was used not just by the lot owners and their guests. Catalano v. Town of Windham, 133 N.H. 504, 510, 578 A.2d 858 (1990). Limited use by [the lot owners or by] neighboring owners . . . [does] not rise to the height of unequivocal acts of acceptance by public use. McInnis v. Town of Hampton, 112 N.H. 57, 61, 288 A.2d 691 (1972). As a matter of law, therefore, use by the Plonskis' predecessors-in-title and their invitees of the one-rod right of way was not public use and, therefore, did not establish acceptance of the paper street by public use. The Plonskis also assert that the trial court erred by requiring them to show that the public used the area continuously for twenty years. They assert that while continuous public use for twenty years is required to establish a public highway by prescription, it is not required to establish a public highway by dedication and acceptance. See RSA 229:1; see also Blagbrough Family Realty Trust, 155 N.H. at 36, 917 A.2d 1221. We need not decide, in this opinion, the quantum of public use necessary to establish implied acceptance of a dedicated road. In this case, the use established either was not by the public or was not for use as a street.