{"id":82,"date":"2013-02-25T08:21:01","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T13:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/county-cant-lawfully-vacate-a-public-street-or-highway-for-the-benefit-of-a-private-individual-georgia-supreme-court.html"},"modified":"2013-02-25T08:21:01","modified_gmt":"2013-02-25T13:21:01","slug":"county-cant-lawfully-vacate-a-public-street-or-highway-for-the-benefit-of-a-private-individual-georgia-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/county-cant-lawfully-vacate-a-public-street-or-highway-for-the-benefit-of-a-private-individual-georgia-supreme-court.html","title":{"rendered":"County can’t “lawfully vacate a public street or highway for the benefit of a private individual” —Georgia Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nWhile I don’t know if the proposed closing of the end of Old State Road\nleading to Hotchkiss Landing at the Alapaha River is even on the agenda\nfor this morning’s Work Session (Clarification: Monday 25 Feb 2013; they vote 5:30 PM Tuesday 26 Feb 2013<\/em>), because\n\nthe county’s website is down and I can’t retrieve an agenda,<\/a>\nin case it is, it may be of interest to know that the Georgia Supreme\nCourt appears to have explicitly forbidden what the county is proposing to do.\n<\/p>\n

\nGeorgia Supreme Court,\n\nGRIFFITH v. C & E BUILDERS,\n231 Ga. 255 (1973),\n200 S.E.2d 874<\/a>:\n<\/p>\n

\nHeld:<\/em>\n

\n1. “When a grantor sells lots of land, and in his deeds describes\nthem as bounded by streets, not expressly mentioned in the deeds,\n\n<\/a>\nbut shown upon a plat therein referred to as laid out in a subdivision\nof the grantor’s land, he is estopped to deny the grantees’ right to\nuse the streets delineated in such plat. Ford v. Harris [95 Ga. 97,\n22 SE 144]; Schreck v. Blun, 131 Ga. 489 (62 SE 705); Wimpey v. Smart,\n137 Ga. 325 (73 SE 586); Gibson v. Gross, 143 Ga. 104 (84 SE 373). By\nparity of reasoning those claiming under such conveyances are estopped\nfrom denying the existence of the streets so delineated upon the\nplat of the subdivision and given as boundaries of lots acquired by\nthese and others from the grantor or those claiming under him. All\npersons claiming under such grantor are forever estopped to deny their\nexistence. 19 CJ 928, \u00a7 127 (b).” Tietjen v. Meldrim, 169 Ga. 678, 697\n(151 SE 349); Davis v. City of Valdosta,223 Ga. 523 (156 S.E.2d 345).\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nI am not a lawyer, but I wonder what a lawyer would say 1. above implies\nabout the county\n\ndoing nothing about a blocked public road?<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nBut the Georgia Supreme Court didn’t stop there:\n<\/p>\n\n\n

\n

\n2. “Neither the General Assembly nor a subordinate public corporation\nacting under its authority can lawfully vacate a public street or highway\nfor the benefit of a private individual. The street or highway can not\nbe vacated unless it is for the benefit of the public that such action\nshould be taken. The benefit may be either in relieving the public from\nthe charge of maintaining a street or highway that is no longer useful\nor convenient to the public, or by laying out a new street or road\nin its place which will be more useful and convenient to the public\nin general. If the public interest is not the motive which prompts the\nvacation of the street, whether partial or entire, the act of vacation is\nan abuse of power, and especially would it be a gross abuse of power if\nit is authorized without reference to the rights of the public and merely\nthat the convenience of a private individual might be subserved.” Marietta\nChair Co. v. Henderson, 121 Ga. 399, 407 (49 SE 312, 104 ASR 156, 2 AC\n83); Dunlap v. Tift,209 Ga. 201 (71 S.E.2d 237).\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nWe know \nfrom Lowndes County’s own minutes<\/a> of the 26 October 2013<\/strike> 2010 meeting\nat which this same road closing was previously denied by the Commission\nthat 450 people opposed it and only one spoke for.\nWe don’t know exactly how many oppose it this time, but we do know\n\nmany people have written letters against<\/a>\nand\n\n<\/a>\n\nthe Commission room was packed with opponents two weeks ago.<\/a>\nOnce again, I am not a lawyer, but I wonder if a lawyer would\ninterpret this as an attempt to\n“vacate a public street or highway for the benefit of a private individual.”\nI’ve previously stated that the Commission often seems overly concerned\nabout lawsuits, but in this case if I were them I might worry about this:\n<\/p>\n

\n“If the public interest is not the motive which prompts the\nvacation of the street, whether partial or entire, the act of vacation is\nan abuse of power, and especially would it be a gross abuse of power if\nit is authorized without reference to the rights of the public and merely\nthat the convenience of a private individual might be subserved.”\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nI’m still not a lawyer, but isn’t abuse of power something that\noften causes people to sue for damages?\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While I don’t know if the proposed closing of the end of Old State Road leading to Hotchkiss Landing at the Alapaha River is even on the agenda for this morning’s Work Session (Clarification: Monday 25 Feb 2013; they vote 5:30 PM Tuesday 26 Feb 2013), because the county’s website is down and I can’t […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,40,16,70,8,2,19,20,88,449],"tags":[8736,494,453,8717,8706,496,8728,8701,8699,8709,454,455,8702,8710,12,7,8734,495,8767,497,6],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-community","category-environment","category-ethics","category-georgia","category-government","category-history","category-law","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-transportation","tag-activism","tag-agenda","tag-alapaha-river","tag-community","tag-environment","tag-estopped","tag-ethics","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-history","tag-hotchkiss-crossing","tag-hotchkiss-landing","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-supreme-court","tag-transportation","tag-vacate","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}