Briel v. City of Natchez

Citations

• 48 Miss. 423

Syllabus

<p>1. Dedication op urban property to public use. — The American states, rapidly filling up with population, and new cities and towns constantly springing into existence, have not exacted as strict and solemn acts to affect the dedication of private property to public use as were exacted by the English law. Here, the rule has obtained that if an urban proprietor has laid off lots intersected by streets, and sold them with reference thereto, or with reference to a map or plot dividing his property into squares, streets and alleys, such acts amount to a dedication of the streots and alleys to public use ; the vendees, in such cases, being considered as having paid the consideration for the dedication, and the dedication being considered an estoppel in pais which cannot be revoked.</p> <p>2. Same — acceptance op property dedicated to public use. — Land dedicated by a private owner to the public use, to be effectual, must be accepted, either by the formal act of the local municipal authority, or by implication from circumstances, reference being had to the use to which the dedication is to be appropriated, and it being unimportant that there should be a user following closely upon the dedication.</p> <p>3. Same — non-user—adverse possession — limitation.—A city, to whose public use property has been devoted by the owner, should not by non-user, even if continued for years, be held to have relinquished or abandoned the easement. To deprive the public of it there must be such open, notorious and continued individual use of the property as to give notice of adverse occupation and use.</p> <p>4. Easements acquired by long user dipper prom those acquired by dedication. — An easement acquired by user, so long as to raise the presumption of an original license, imposes a servitude upon the property, and, to the extent of its efficient use, limits the proprietary rights of the owner of the fee. Hot so where the right of a city began in a substantive and formal devotion of the p