Court Opinion

ID: 9566796
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:43:12.748577+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:41:47.285623
License: Public Domain

Ingram, Justice,
concurring specially. In Duncan v. Sluder, 204 Ga. 458 (50 SE2d 78), it appeared a corporation erected five houses on a city street adjacent to each other. Plaintiff and defendant in that case each owned one of the houses with a driveway between them. The line between the property of the plaintiff and the defendant was approximately in the center of the driveway. It was used by the parties and the public until the defendant placed an obstruction along the center of the driveway which barred the plaintiff from using that part of the driveway located on defendant’s property. The deeds and plat showed no driveway. The question was whether the plaintiff proved she had acquired a right to continued use of the entire driveway by prescription. This court found the evidence showed permissive use by the parties, and the public, of the driveway. Therefore, it was held the plaintiff did not make out her case as to seven years’ prescriptive use of the driveway.
That case is significant here, perhaps as a physical precedent, *779to suggest that seven years prescriptive use, rather than twenty, applies to a subdivision lot. The vexing point is, of course, whether this subdivision lot is "improved” land or "wild” land. It is wild land in the sense that no house or other structure has been erected on it. But it is improved land in the sense that the entire subdivision in which the lot is located has been improved through the installation of utilities (electricity, water and gas), the paving of streets and the construction of road curbing and laying out the various lots in the subdivision.
It may be closer to the truth to suggest the ancient origin of this statute did not contemplate the kind of factual situation, to wit, a modern subdivision, that we find in this case, and, therefore, the statute has no application. As I read the majority opinion and the dissenting opinion, the essential difference between them on this issue is the majority conclude this lot is improved land while the dissenting opinion concludes the lot is wild land. Since both opinions tacitly acknowledge the applicability of this statute to the factual situation in this case, I yield on this point and concur in the opinion of the majority. I believe the lot here involved more nearly fits the definition of improved land than wild land. Therefore, I concur in the majority opinion that a jury issue is presented as to the claim of a prescriptive private way.