Court Opinion

ID: 9617195
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:53:11.377499+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:44.497373
License: Public Domain

CARLEY, Justice,
dissenting.
The dispositive issue in this case is whether OCGA §§ 32-3-3 (c) and 44-5-161 provide for two completely separate and distinct methods by which a governmental body can obtain prescriptive title to a road, or whether those two provisions are in pari materia and, when read together, set forth the necessary elements of a single method for doing so. The trial court held that the statutes authorize alternative methods, the satisfaction of the requirements of either of which will result in prescriptive title in the governmental entity. Today, a majority of this Court affirms that ruling, concluding on p. 387 that “[t]he two statutory procedures are not, as the County argues here, a single method.” I disagree with that conclusion, and believe that this Court’s binding precedent demonstrates that compliance with the requirements of both OCGA § 32-3-3 (c) and § 44-5-161 is necessary before a governmental body obtains prescriptive title to a road. Therefore, I dissent.
*389Appellees sought issuance of a writ of mandamus against the Paulding County Board of Commissioners (County), seeking to compel maintenance of a roadway that they asserted the County had maintained from 1935 until the mid-1970’s. The County denied ownership and responsibility for maintenance of the road. The case came on for a hearing where, in addition to evidence showing that the County had not maintained the road for the preceding 30-year period, there was evidence showing that the road had not become “a public road by the exercise of unlimited public use for the preceding seven years or more,” in accordance with OCGA § 32-3-3 (c). Nevertheless, the trial court granted the writ, concluding that, regardless of OCGA § 32-3-3 (c), the County acquired prescriptive title pursuant to OCGA § 44-5-161 by virtue of its possession and maintenance of the road for at least a 20-year period after 1935.
The County appeals, asserting that Appellees were not entitled to relief simply by showing compliance with OCGA § 44-5-161. It urges that they must show satisfaction of the requirements of OCGA § 32-3-3 (c) as well. As the majority concedes on pp. 386-387,
the County’s argument is supported by language in this Court’s decision in Chandler v. Robinson, 269 Ga. 881 (2) (506 SE2d 121) (1998). In that case, this Court combined the provisions of the two statutes in stating the requirements for a governmental body to acquire a roadway by prescription.
Thus, the issue raised by this case already has been addressed in and resolved by Chandler, which construed OCGA §§ 32-3-3 (c) and 44-5-161 as setting forth, in combination, the constituent elements of a single method by which a governmental entity obtains prescriptive title to a road.
In order to obtain prescriptive rights over a roadway, the possession must not originate in fraud, must be public, continuous, exclusive, uninterrupted, peaceable, and accompaniedby a claim of right. [Cit.] The use must alsobe adverse rather than permissive, and in the case of public roads acquired by prescription, public authorities must have either accepted the road or exercised dominion over it. [Cit.] Lastly, there must have been unlimited public use of the roadway for at least the seven years preceding the claim of prescriptive acquisition. OCGA § 32-3-3 (c). (Emphasis supplied.)
Chandler v. Robinson, supra at 883 (2).
The doctrine of stare decisis
*390is more compelling in cases involving the interpretation of a statute. “Once the court interprets the statute ‘the interpretation ... has become an integral part of the statute.’ [Cits.] This having been done, (over a long period of history) any subsequent ‘reinterpretation’ would be no different in effect from a judicial alteration of language that the General Assembly itself placed in the statute.”
Mitchell v. State, 239 Ga. 3, 6 (2) (235 SE2d 509) (1977). Since Chandler was decidedin 1998, the General Assembly has not amended OCGA § 32-3-3 or § 44-5-161 so as to provide that those provisions establish separate and distinct methods pursuant to which a governmental body obtains prescriptive title to a road. Thus, I submit that the majority has, in effect, today rewritten the statutes so as to achieve a result that is inconsistent with the clear legislative intent.
The majority attempts to evade application of the holding in Chandler by noting on p. 387 that,
after having stated the requirements as a single list, the opinion in [that case] resolves the issue in two ways, first by applying OCGA § 32-3-3 (c) . . . , and then by applying the requirements of OCGA§§ 44-5-161 and 44-5-163 .... Since failure under either of the two statutory procedures would have sufficed to resolve the issue if they were both part of a single method, the separate treatment given the procedures in Chandler indicates that although they were listed together, they were not considered by this Court to be part of a single procedure.
I disagree with this analysis, and believe that the majority mistakenly cites the thoroughness of this Court’s disposition of Chandler as support for misinterpreting the holding of that case. It is true that, because both OCGA § 32-3-3 (c) and § 44-5-161 are parts of a single method, a failure to comply with any one of the various elements set forth in either would have been fatal to prescriptive title. However, it is equally true that, in any case where there was a failure to comply with more than one element, an appellate court would be free to discuss all of those failures and need not limit itself to reliance only on one. Thus, the fact that Chandler noted that there was a lack of compliance with both OCGA § 32-3-3 (c) and § 44-5-161 does not indicate that those statutes provide alternative methods by which a governmental body can acquire prescriptive title to a road. It merely signifies that there were multiple bases for the holding in Chandler that prescriptive title to the roadway had not been obtained under the single procedure for a governmental entity to do so.
*391The facts of this case demonstrate why Chandler correctly held that OCGA §§ 32-3-3 (c) and 44-5-161 must be construed in pari materia. It is unfair to require that a governmental entity resume responsibility for maintenance of a road after a 30-year period has elapsed, unless it is also established that the road has been subject to the exercise of unlimited public use for the preceding seven-year period or longer. Thus, the applicable law is clear. In order for a governmental body to obtain prescriptive rights over a roadway, there must be compliance with OCGA § 44-5-161 and, in accordance with OCGA § 32-3-3 (c), “there must have been unlimited public use of the roadway for at least the seven years preceding the claim of prescriptive acquisition. [Cit.]” Chandler v. Robinson, supra at 883 (2). Here, the trial court found satisfaction of the requirements of OCGA § 44-5-161, but also concluded that there had been no compliance with the requirements of OCGA § 32-3-3 (c). Accordingly, the trial court erred in holding that the County acquired prescriptive title to the road and erred in issuing the writ of mandamus requiring the County to maintain it.
I am authorized to state that Justice Melton joins in this dissent.