Court Opinion

ID: 9588355
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:33:22.457339+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:58.544176
License: Public Domain

ELLETT, Justice
(dissenting) :
I dissent.
A quarry company obtained a quitclaim deed to a road on November 6, 1891. A quarry was in operation by the company prior to 1894 when the superintendent of the quarry married a girl who lived nearby. Prior to the marriage the superintendent and workmen from the quarry with their musical instruments would come to the home of the bride-to-be on frequent occasions.
It is difficult to find witnesses who have knowledge of occurrences 80 years ago. However, the brother of the bride testified to the above, and it is without question that the quarry company operated a business employing approximately twenty employees from prior to 1894 up to 1898, when the quarry was taken over by another operator. In addition to the men working in the quarry, there were the superintendent and his wife and two Chinese cooks working in the boarding house.
The road in question was used to service the quarry and for the workmen to travel to and from it. Visitors to the quarry also used the road. One witness testified that he worked in the quarry during the year 1915. After the railroad tracks were removed, stone was hauled from the quarry by the use of trucks. The road and the railroad were side by side, and after the removal of the tracks a part of the roadbed was used for vehicular travel for the reason that it was higher and not subject to the boggy condition of the old road in wet weather.
Much testimony was directed to the facts of the case after October 23, 1931, the date patent was issued to a predecessor in interest of the defendants. In my opinion the only relevant testimony after patent is that which bears on the question of legal abandonment. That testimony shows that Summit County still receives Class B road money on the road. It receives money on .8 of a mile on the old road and .4 of a mile along the old railroad bed.
This case is concerned with the proposition of whether a road was established *134across the defendants’ land prior to the issuance of patent thereto. If it was, it is not important how extensively it was used or whether it was used at all afterwards so long as it was not legally abandoned.1
Section 2477, U. S. Revised Statutes, 43 U.S.C.A. § 932, in force after I860 reads: “The right of way for the construction of highways over public lands, not reserved for public uses, is hereby granted.”
There was no time limit required by the Revised Statutes for establishing a highway, and so it would depend upon territorial or state statutes to determine whether or not a road had been established across public lands.2 There was no statute in Utah regarding the establishment of (highways prior to 1886, when Chapter 12 was enacted, reading:
Sec. 2. . . . A highway shall be deemed and taken as dedicated and abandoned to the use of the public when it has been continuously and uninterruptedly used as a public thoroughfare for a period of ten years. [In substance, same as Sec. 27-12-89, U.C.A.1953, Replacement Vol. 3.]
* * * * * *
Sec. 6. A road not worked or used for a period of five years ceases to be a highway. [Eliminated by Chapter 142, Laws of Utah 1911.]
Sec. 1116, Ch. 1, Title 25, R.S.U.1898, provided:
All highways once established must continue to be highways until abandoned by order of the board of county commissioners of the county in which they are situated, by operation of law, or by judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction; • . . . [Sec. 27-12-90, U.C.A. 1953, Replacement Vol. 3. has practically identical language.]
It thus appears that for more than ten years prior to the issuance of patent the old road was used to service the quarry. The burden would be upon the defendants to show that for a five-year period prior to 1911 after the road was established it was neither travelled nor worked, or that it had been legally abandoned. The defendants did neither, and so I think the road is still in existence.
The fact that the use of the road was over a part of the old adjoining railroad bed has no effect upon the existence of the road. In my opinion the plaintiffs did not need to amend their complaint at all. In the case of Sullivan et ux. v. Condas, 76 Utah 585, 595, 290 P. 954, 957 (1930), this court said:
A point also is made of a change of the course of the road. Whatever change was made was slight and did not *135materially change or affect the general course of the highway or of its location nor break or change the continuity of travel or use. [Citation omitted.]
However, plaintiffs did amend and are in my opinion entitled to a decree determining that the lower road is a public highway.
I would reverse the judgment of the lower court and remand the matter for a determination of the boundaries of the lower road, together with the assessment of such damages, if any, as plaintiffs may have sustained by reason of defendants’ interference, if any, with their right to use the road. I would award costs to the appellants.

. Ball v. Stephens, 68 Cal.App.2d 843, 158 P.2d 207 (1945).

. Wilson v. Williams, 43 N.M. 173, 87 P.2d 683 (1939); Ball v. Stephens, footnote 1, supra.