Court Opinion

ID: 9589536
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:45:52.108648+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:49.337717
License: Public Domain

On Motion For Rehearing.
Counsel contends on the motion for rehearing that this court does not deal with the case of City of Atlanta v. Georgia R. & Bkg. Co., 148 Ga. 635 (98 S. E. 83). We did not deal with the case by citing it for the reason that counsel stated in their argument that this court in its decision when this case was here before (81 Ga. App. 269) was evidently following City of Atlanta v. Georgia R. & Bkg. Co., supra. We thought then and still think that this statement of counsel is true. We might state here, however, that the facts in City of Atlanta v. Georgia B. & Bkg. Co., supra, are so different that is has no application to the facts in the instant case. In that case the City of Atlanta, it seems, desired to cross what might be termed a railroad yard where trains were constantly moving freight over several tracks and side tracks and, under the facts of that case, the City of Atlanta could not have possibly acquired a right-of-way by implication and to permit the City of Atlanta to carry out its de-
*693sire to have reduced railroad traffic, in which the public was interested, by approximately one-fourth of the volume, and further to require the railroad companies to comply with the requirements sought by the City of Atlanta and entail upon the railroad an expenditure of several hundred thousand dollars. We could not have anticipated, in writing the opinion in the instant case, that counsel for the defendant here would contend that the facts in that case were similar to the facts in the instant case. From a casual reading of the cases cited in the majority opinion in City of Atlanta v. Georgia R. & Bkg. Co., cited by Justices Atkinson and George in their dissent, there could be drawn no similarity as to the facts in that case and the facts of the instant case. The principle of law is the same, of course, but the facts are entirely different. It must be kept in mind that when this case was here before (81 Ga. App. 269, 273), this court said: “The intention to dedicate need not be shown by an express declaration to that effect. Such intention may be inferred from an acquiescence by the owner in the use of his property by the public. But the use must be of such a character as to clearly indicate that the public has accepted the dedication of the property to the public use. The acceptance need not be express, but if the way be used by the public and worked or treated by the public authorities. . (Italics ours.) That is the law of this case and the evidence clearly supports the proposition that the railroads have for over twenty years acquiesced in school children as well as adults using this passageway across only two- lines of tracks, without any interference of the use of the tracks by the railroad as a public carrier. To our way of interpretation of the. evidence, the public authorities of the City of Decatur worked and treated this passageway across the railroad tracks, thus accepting the implied dedication on the part of the railroad company. In this connection it might be well to reiterate that during this long period of time the railroad company erected no barricades and gave no one warnings against such use by the public.

Motion for rehearing denied.

Townsend and Carlisle, JJ., concur.