Court Opinion

ID: 9654728
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:48:55.058978+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:12.915185
License: Public Domain

Ed. F. MoFaddin, Justice (dissenting). My dissent is because I am unable to find any way to keep from applying Act No. 666 of 1923. That Act was captioned: “An Act to Prohibit the Acquiring of Public Property by Adverse Possession, and for Other Purposes”; and, as now found in § 37-109, et seq., Ark. Stats., reads in part: “Hereafter no title or right of possession to any public thoroughfare, road, highway or public park, or any portion thereof, shall or can be acquired by adverse possession or adverse occupancy thereof, and the right of the public or of the proper authorities of any county to open or have opened any such public thoroughfare, road, highway or park, or parts thereof, shall not be defeated in any action or proceeding by reason of or because of adverse possession or adverse occupancy of any such public thoroughfare, road, highway or park, or any portion thereof, where such adverse possession or oecnpaney commenced or began after the passage of this act. ’ ’ Apparently this Act has been overlooked until the present time. Certainly it was not referred to in any of the following cases: Stoker v. Gross, 216 Ark. 939, 228 S. W. 2d 638; Kennedy v. Crouse, 214 Ark. 830, 218 S. W. 2d 375; Mount v. Dillon, 200 Ark. 153, 138 S. W. 2d 59, and Porter v. Huff, 162 Ark. 52, 257 S. W. 393. Yet the plain language of the Act — as I read it- — says that when a road has become a public road, its public nature cannot be lost by adverse possession or adverse occupancy. In the case at bar, the trial court held that the road in question was a public road in 1926 and that it was not until 1928 that gates were first placed across the road. Under said Act No. 666 of 1923, the only way a public road can cease to be a public road is by something other than mere abandonment or adverse possession. Act No. 666 of 1923 is strikingly similar to Act No. 426 of 1907, as now found in § 19-3831, Ark. Stats., which relates to streets in cities and towns. Prior to the said Act No. 426 of 1907, this Court held, in El Dorado v. Ritchie, 84 Ark. 52, 104 S. W. 549, that there could be adverse possession of a street in an incorporated town. To overcome that holding, the Legislature passed Act No. 426 of 1907; and in Madison v. Bond, 133 Ark. 527, 202 S. W. 721, this Court recognized that if the street had been an open street in 1907, then it remained an open street. In the case at bar, the road here involved was an open road in 1926 and there was no attempt to close it until 1928. I think it still remains an open road, and that the way to close a public road is by order of the County Court, as contained in § 76-918, et seq., Ark. Stats. I regard it as unfortunate that Act No. 666 of 1923 was not called to the attention of the Court in earlier cases, but I cannot “get around” the plain wording of the Act; and, to me, it means once a public road, always a public road, until closed by proper order. Therefore, I respectfully dissent from the majority holding.