Court Opinion

ID: 9630421
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:10:50.116346+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:39:02.451389
License: Public Domain

MACY, Justice.
Appellee Sheridan County Board of County Commissioners filed an action against Appellant Keith Sare, seeking to enjoin him from maintaining fences, gates, and a leach field on a street dedicated to Sheridan County. The district court granted a summary judgment in favor of the Board of County Commissioners.
We affirm.
Sare presents the following issue for our review:
1. Can Keith Sare maintain gates across the right of way for Lodore Avenue to exclude the general public until Sheridan Coun[]ty decides to construct, maintain and use Lodore Avenue?
The record in this case reveals that on December 15, 1988, the Board of County Commissioners filed a complaint with the district court, alleging that Louvina Smith platted a subdivision in Sheridan County, which the Board of County Commissioners approved and established on September 1, 1936. The Board of County Commissioners asserted that the subdivision contained streets which Smith dedicated for public use and that Sare, without authority, constructed and maintained fences, gates, and a leach field on a dedicated street named Lodore Avenue. The complaint further alleged that Sare’s gates and fences ob*594structed public access on the street, and it sought temporary and permanent injunc-tive relief for removal of the obstructions.
Sare admitted that Smith dedicated the street for public use. He asserted, however, that the Board of County Commissioners had orally granted his father, Sare’s predecessor in interest, permission to construct a gate across the street and that the Board of County Commissioners was estopped from claiming relief for Sare’s use because: (1) the road had not been used by the public and would not be used by the public in the future; (2) the Board of County Commissioners had not constructed or maintained the road in the past and refused to maintain it in the future; (3) Sare and his father maintained the road for thirty years; and (4) Sheridan County has vacated other roads in the immediate area. Sare also stated in an affidavit that his father constructed the road which exists on the street; that, after Sare’s requests, the county road superintendent refused to remove snow off the street; and that his leach field was not located on the street.
In addition, the affidavits provided by the parties and the answers to Sare’s request for admissions reveal the following facts. Lodore Avenue serves as a boundary between Sare’s property and Jack and Annabelle Moody’s property. Sometime in 1988, Sare fenced off a gate in the fence separating the Moodys’ property and Lo-dore Avenue. The Moodys have also been prevented from using the street to enter their property because Sare placed gates on the street, which he occasionally padlocked. The Board of County Commissioners stated that it has no plans to complete construction of Lodore Avenue and that it will not maintain the street except when necessary to reduce an imminent and immediate threat of life or property.
Both parties moved for a summary judgment. On June 7, 1989, the district court found that Sare had moved a fence which previously existed between the street and the Moodys’ property and ordered:
(1) * * * If the fence line as now constructed is on the boundary line between the Moody property and County right-of-way, it may remain provided that the Defendant build into the fence a gate located between the right-of-way and the Moody property in the same location it was in the fence before it was reconstructed. In the event the existing fence is not upon the correct boundary line between the Moody property and the right-of-way line, then the Defendant will be required to reconstruct the fence on the correct boundary line again providing for a gate between the right-of-way and the Moody property in the same location, or approximately the same location, as it was in the previously existing fence.
(2) Mr. Sare will be enjoined and restrained from placing any gates or obstructions in the right-of-way provided that the County agrees with Mr. Sare to pay one half (½) of the cost of constructing a fence between the Sare property and the County right-of-way. Until such time as the County agrees to pay half of the costs of constructing such fence, then the Sares can continue to maintain the fences and gates as they presently exist on the right-of-way provided that such gates cannot be locked and such gates must be maintained] in such a manner that the public can easily open and close said gates and gain access back and forth along the dedicated and existing right-of-way.
This appeal followed.
We have articulated the standard of review for a summary judgment many times. Teton Plumbing and Heating, Inc. v. Board of Trustees, Laramie County School District Number One, 763 P.2d 843 (Wyo.1988); Albrecht v. Zwaanshoek Holding En Financiering, B.V., 762 P.2d 1174 (Wyo.1988). In Jones Land and Livestock Co. v. Federal Land Bank of Omaha, 733 P.2d 258, 263 (Wyo.1987), we stated:
[T]he burden is on the moving party to demonstrate that there is no genuine issue of material fact before a motion for summary judgment should be granted. However, once the movant has established a prima facie case, the burden then shifts to the opposing party to come *595forward with competent evidence of specific facts countering the facts presented by the movant. General allegations and conclusory statements are not sufficient.
(Citation omitted.) See also Pace v. Hadley, 742 P.2d 1283 (Wyo.1987).
The parties do not dispute that Smith dedicated the street for public use when she filed a plat for a subdivision.1 A dedication is defined as
“the devotion of property to a public use by an unequivocal act of the owner, manifesting an intention that it shall be accepted and used presently or in the future. The intention of the owner to dedicate and acceptance thereof by the public are the essential elements of a complete dedication. Thus it is vital to a dedication of property to public use that it is to be forever and irrevocable after acceptance, and that it be for a public use."
City of Evanston v. Robinson, 702 P.2d 1283, 1286 (Wyo.1985) (emphasis added) (quoting 11 E. McQuillin, The Law of Municipal Corporations § 33.02 at 636 (3d ed. 1983)). This Court has established the principle that, once a road becomes a public road, the public has a vested right to use it, and it “cannot be vacated [or abandoned] without compliance with the appropriate statutes.” Sheridan County v. Spiro, 697 P.2d 290, 303 (Wyo.1985). See also Board of County Commissioners, Carbon County v. White, 547 P.2d 1195 (Wyo.1976).2 There is nothing in the record indicating that Lodore Avenue was vacated.
Irrespective of the validity of Smith’s dedication, Sare contends that the Board of County Commissioners should be estopped from protesting about his gates and fences because the Board of County Commissioners granted his father permission to build a gate and because the Board of County Commissioners has failed to construct or maintain the street. While this Court has stated that the doctrine of equitable estop-pel applies to municipal corporations, Rohrbaugh v. Mokler, 26 Wyo. 514, 188 P. 448 (1920), we recently said:
Equitable estoppel should not be invoked against a government or public agency functioning in its governmental capacity, except in rare and unusual circumstances and may not be invoked where it would serve to defeat the effective operation of a policy adopted to protect the public.
Big Piney Oil & Gas Company v. Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, 715 P.2d 557, 560 (Wyo.1986).
Sare has failed to set forth any rare and unusual circumstances in his materials opposing the Board of County Commissioners’ motion for summary judgment which would invoke the application of estoppel. There being no genuine issue of material fact, the Board of County Commissioners is entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law.
Affirmed.

. Wyo.Stat. § 34-12-104 (1977) provides:
The acknowledgment and recording of such plat, is equivalent to a deed in fee simple of such portion of the premises platted as is on such plat set apart for streets, or other public use, or is thereon dedicated to charitable, religious or educational purposes.
The 1936 version of § 34-12-104 is the same as the current statute. Wyo.Rev.Stat. § 116-203 (1931).

. Wyo.Stat. §§ 34-12-106 to -109 and 24-3-101 to -127 (1977) provide for vacation of plats, streets, alleys, and highways.