State v. Horlacher

Citations

• 16 Wash. 325
• 47 P. 748
• 1897 Wash. LEXIS 311

Syllabus

<p>NUISANCE — OBSTRUCTING PUBLIC HIGHWAY — EVIDENCE — ESTABLISHMENT BY PRESCRIPTION — INSTRUCTIONS.</p> <p>The fact of the existence of a public highway may be established by any competent evidence, and, in a prosecution for its obstruction, there is no compulsion upon the state to elect whether it would rely upon the establishment of the high way by prescription, dedication, user, or the order of the county commissioners.</p> <p>In a prosecution for maintaining a public nuisance by constructing a fence across a public highway, a letter from the county commissioners to defendant agreeing to a change in the road as proposed by defendant, if he could get all interested parties to agree, is inadmissible for the purpose of showing good faith and negativing wilful obstruction by the defendant, when there is no showing that he had complied with the terms of the letter.</p> <p>Where proof of the use by the public of a highway over defendant’s land has been confined to acts and declarations, it is not error to refuse to allow defendant to state whether or not he had consented to the use of the highway.</p> <p>The character of a road as a public highway, established by prescription, is not affected by immaterial changes and alterations in the travel over it by the public.</p> <p>In a prosecution for obstructing a public highway which the evidence shows had been established by public user for a period of fifteen years, an instruction that the jury must find from seven to ten years’ user by the public is not prejudicial, in view of the evidence, when other instructions clearly show the length of time essentia] to establish a highway by prescription.</p>