Court Opinion

ID: 9615524
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:38:00.706375+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:00:39.235688
License: Public Domain

LOHR, Justice,
dissenting:
The majority has developed several inviting reasons why we should not “rigidly interpret” the public highways statute to include the footpaths at issue here within the definition of “roads” and “highways” *1305as used in that statute. However, I am unconvinced that the intent of the legislature as expressed in the relevant statute is as the majority declares.
Section 43-2-201(l)(c), 17 C.R.S. (1973), simply provides:
(1) The following are declared to be public highways:
* * * * tfc *
(c) All roads over private lands that have been used adversely without interruption or objection on the part of the owners of such lands for twenty consecutive years....
The restrictions on the operation of this statute found by the majority to be the intent of the legislature are not expressed or implied in the statute. Nor does the majority cite to any legislative history or contemporaneous expression indicating that the legislature intended these restrictions to prevent certain ways over private lands from becoming public highways under the statute even though the public has traveled along such ways adversely without interruption or objection for twenty consecutive years.
As the majority concedes, when the legislature adopted this statute in 1891, the terms “road” and “highway” were recognized in the existing decisions, texts and legal dictionaries as generic terms for ways of all character, including footpaths. See, e.g., Arkansas River Packet Co. v. Sorrells, 50 Ark. 466, 8 S.W. 683, 684 (1888); Pappenburg v. State, 10 Ala.App. 224, 65 So. 418, 419 (1914) {see authorities cited therein). This continues to be the general rule today. See, e.g., Hale v. Sullivan, 146 Colo. 512, 518, 362 P.2d 402, 405 (1961); Muscolino v. Superior Court, 172 Cal. App.2d 525, 341 P.2d 773, 774 (1959); Levy v. Kimball, 50 Haw. 497, 443 P.2d 142, 144 (1968); Albee v. Town of Yarrow Point, 74 Wash.2d 453, 445 P.2d 340, 344 (1968); Stegman v. City of Fort Thomas, 273 Ky. 309, 116 S.W.2d 649, 651 (1938); Black’s Law Dictionary 862 (“highway”), 1491-92 (“road”) (rev. 4th ed. 1968); 10 E. McQuillin, The Law of Municipal Corporations § 30.02 (3rd ed. rev. 1981). If the legislature intended in 1891 to exclude from the terms “road” and “highway” footpaths in urban areas, or such of those footpaths as are shortcuts, it is not unreasonable to assume that the legislature would have imposed express limitations on the generic terms in the statute.
The majority also concedes that section 43-2-201(l)(c) does not require the city to demonstrate its willingness to accept a public highway as a condition to creation of such a highway under that statute. Such willingness or action by the city has eviden-tiary, but not controlling, significance. See Board of County Commissioners v. Flickinger, 687 P.2d 975 (Colo.1984). In apparent contradiction of that concession, however, the majority then cites cases to the contrary from other jurisdictions. These authorities were decided under different statutory and case law backgrounds and are inapposite. The fact that some other subsections of the statute specifically require some form of action or knowing inaction by the appropriate governing body simply bespeaks the likelihood that the legislature did not intend such a requirement to be imposed on the public highway by the public use subsection of the statute.
The footpaths are “roads” within the meaning of section 43-2-201(l)(c). The implicit ruling of the trial court that the other requirements of that statute have been satisfied is fully supported by the record. Therefore, I would reverse the judgment of the Colorado Court of Appeals and direct that the trial court's judgment that the footpaths are public highways be affirmed.1

. No useful purpose would be served by addressing the trial court’s ruling that the location of the footpaths can be changed by an exercise of the court’s equitable powers. I express no opinion on the correctness of that part of the trial court judgment. For the same reason, I do *1306not elaborate on my conclusion that the land crossed by the paths was not vacant and unoccupied, and that, therefore, the Colorado Court of Appeals was in error in reversing the trial-level determination that the public use of the paths was adverse, not permissive.