People ex rel. Rensselaer v. Van Alstyne
New York Court of Appeals
Alexander Van Rensselaer and others, commissioners of highways of the town of Claverack, in Columbia county, having made an order refusing to lay out a highway, which Peter H. Kipp had applied for, Kipp appealed from their decision to the county judge of Columbia county, who thereupon made an order, in which, after reciting the taking of the appeal, &c., he appointed James Van Alstyne and others (the present defendants), whom he described as “three disinterested freeholders,…
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Alexander Van Rensselaer and others, commissioners of highways of the town of Claverack, in Columbia county, having made an order refusing to lay out a highway, which Peter H. Kipp had applied for, Kipp appealed from their decision to the county judge of Columbia county, who thereupon made an order, in which, after reciting the taking of the appeal, &c., he appointed James Van Alstyne and others (the present defendants), whom he described as “three disinterested freeholders, who have not been named by the parties interested in the appeal,” as referees to hear and determine the appeal. On the…
1Opinion of the CourtPorter, J.
The decision was right, upon the merits. The road was laid out between two highways. One of these was unrecorded; but the fact is established, by the proof and the finding, that for more than twenty years it had been used as a public highway, and it therefore became such by force of the statute. 1 B. S. 531, § 100.
If, however, the fact had been otherwise, the authority of the referees to lay out the road would have been equally clear. It. was formerly supposed that, by the rules of the common law, a mere cul de sac could not be a highway, open, of right, to all The contrary doctrine is now…
2Cases cited4 opinions
- The People v. . WheelerNew York Court of Appeals · 1860
- Commissioners of Highways of Warwick v. Judges of Orange CountyNew York Supreme Court · 1835
- Wiggins v. TallmadgeNew York Supreme Court · 1851
- Bingham v. DisbrowNew York Supreme Court · 1862
3Cited by1 opinion
- People ex rel. Stockwell v. TalmageNew York Supreme Court · 1887