Town of Sumner v. Peebles

Citations

• 5 Wash. 471
• 32 P. 221
• 1893 Wash. LEXIS 4

Syllabus

<p>HIGHWAYS — ESTABLISHMENT OE COUNTY ROAD — CHANGE OE LOCATION — ESTOPPEL.</p> <p>Under the road law of 1859 (Laws 1859, p. 7), when the board of county commissioners caused to be entered in the “road book” required to be kept by them as a public record, a petition for a county road, the report of viewers thereon, a description of the road and the adoption of the view made, the road was thereby established of the width of sixty feet, in the absence of any order of the board prescribing a less Tvidth.</p> <p>A county road was established in 1860, and in 1863 the county commissioners, on a petition therefor, irregularly ordered that the location of a portion of the road be changed, granting the order for the change on the same day the petition was filed, and instructing the supervisor to open the road “as now laid out.” But no change was made at the time and the public continued to use the original road for a number of years. In 1874, K, one of the petitioners for the change, and who had succeeded to the ownership of the land through which the old and the proposed roads lay, being at the time road supervisor of the district, obstructed and closed the old road and opened a new one thirty feet in width along the line of the changed location, at the public expense. Held, That as supervisor he took possession of the new line of road as a public road of the statutory width, and that as owner he assented to the proceedings had by the board of commissioners eleven years before, and is es-topped from claiming that the new road is not a legal road of sixty feet in width.</p>