Pearce v. Town of Gilmer

Citations

• 54 Ill. 25

Syllabus

<p>1. Highways—where the ord&r establishing a road fails to prescribe the width. Where an order of a county commissioners’ court establishing a public highway, omitted to prescribe the width of the road, it was held, the order was not a nullity, nor the road opened under it illegal, by reason of such omission, but the proceeding was merely erroneous.</p> <p>2. And after the road had been recognized and worked as a public highway for eighteen years subsequent to the order of the court, it was too late to deny the validity of the order, merely on the ground that it failed to define the width of the road.</p> <p>3. Where a roadway was actually opened, traveled and worked, under such an order, the public would have a legal right of way over such width of road as the owners of adjacent lands might open in obedience to the order. If they should not establish the width by fencing, but allow the road to be traveled and worked as a public highway on unenclosed land, without, in the proper time and manner, raising a question as to the defect in the order, the public would take at least the minimum width of thirty feet.</p> <p>4. So where a person obstructs a highway which has been actually opened, traveled and worked under such an order, he will be liable therefor, as for obstructing a legally established highway.</p>