Property owners bounding a discontinued or abandoned highway, or a highway any portion of which has been discontinued or abandoned, shall have a right-of-way for all purposes for which a public highway may be now or hereafter used over such discontinued or abandoned highway to the nearest or most accessible highway, provided such right-of-way has not been acquired in conjunction with a limited access highway.
(1959, P.A. 674, S. 3; 1963, P.A. 226, S. 55; P.A. 85-227; P.A. 90-142, S. 1, 2.)
History: 1963 act replaced previous provisions: See title history; P.A. 85-227 granted a right-of-way to owners of property which bounds a highway, any portion of which is abandoned or discontinued, over such discontinued or abandoned highway to the nearest or most accessible highway; P.A. 90-142 after “right-of-way” added “for all purposes for which a public highway may be now or hereafter used”.
Constitutionality of statute upheld; access rights of owners of property abutting discontinued or abandoned highways discussed. 188 C. 336. Cited. 192 C. 663; 218 C. 65. Plaintiffs' request for injunction requiring removal of a traffic gate erected by defendant, town of Berlin, to control access to and from an abandoned public road was denied because continued use of the gate did not cause plaintiffs irreparable harm; plaintiffs' use of road was minimal and therefore outweighed by defendant's need to provide a safe environment for its residents. 259 C. 83.
Cited. 17 CA 476. Statute not applied retroactively. 22 CA 285. Cited. 26 CA 785; 35 CA 398. Section alters common law consequences of discontinuance of a public highway; prior to statute, discontinuance extinguished both public easement of travel and private easement of access, but after statute, public easement ceases but private easement of abutting owners continues. 127 CA 16.
Cited. 44 CS 189. After enactment of statute, public easement over discontinued or abandoned highways ceases, but private easement remains. 47 CS 418.
PART III
LAYOUT AND ALTERATION
Notes of Decisions
Luf v. Town of Southbury, 449 A.2d 1001 (Conn. 1982).
· cites it 26× “The court further found that the plaintiffs’ access rights were not sufficiently protected by General Statutes § 13a-55, on which the defendant *340 relied, because that statute was of doubtful constitutionality.”
Mackie v. Hull, 795 A.2d 1280 (Conn. App. Ct. 2002).
· cites it 19× “However, we remand this case for determination of whether the highway was abandoned after June 29, 1959, by the passage of a sufficiently long period of nonuse with intent to abandon, giving the defendants a right of access under General Statutes § 13a-55. We first summarize the…”
Tighe v. Town of Berlin, 788 A.2d 40 (Conn. 2002).
· cites it 13× “2 The *85 plaintiffs argue that the trial court improperly interpreted the scope of General Statutes § 13a-55. 3 The plaintiffs further argue that the trial court improperly concluded that the continued gating of the abandoned road did not cause the plaintiffs irreparable harm.”
Rudewicz v. Gagne, 582 A.2d 463 (Conn. App. Ct. 1990).
· cites it 13× “The plaintiff withdrew his action as to the second count of the complaint and filed this appeal.”
Gagnon v. Mun. Plan. Comm'n of Ansonia, 521 A.2d 589 (Conn. App. Ct. 1987).
· cites it 7× “General Statutes § 13a-55 now preserves for the plaintiff her rights to the driveway created by the city of Ansonia at the time of its relocation of Jewett Street.”
Cohen v. City of Hartford, 710 A.2d 746 (Conn. 1998).
· cites it 4× “The amended complaint also alleged that: (1) the regulation is unlawful because it was not adopted by ordinance; (2) the regulation is unlawful because it promotes a private, rather than a public, purpose; (3) the impairment of the plaintiffs’ private easement of access caused…”
Marrin v. Spearow, 646 A.2d 254 (Conn. App. Ct. 1994).
· cites it 4× “e trial court improperly (1) rendered an inconsistent judgment by *399 finding that the defendants owned the disputed property both by conveyance of record title and by adverse possession, (2) failed to find that the plaintiff owned record title to the land in dispute, (3)…”
Ventres v. Town of Farmington, 473 A.2d 1216 (Conn. 1984).
· cites it 4× “This statute provides in pertinent part: “Property owners bounding a discontinued or abandoned highway shall continue to have a right-of-way over it to the nearest or most accessible highway . .”
Wellswood Columbia, LLC v. Town of Hebron, 171 A.3d 409 (Conn. 2017).
· cites it 2× “Specifically, the plaintiffs argued that the trial court "improperly denied their request for a permanent injunction barring the [town] from closing Wellswood Road because: (1) barring the road was an unreasonable and arbitrary exercise of police power; (2) equitable *417 relief…”
Wellswood Columbia, LLC v. Town of Hebron, 992 A.2d 1120 (Conn. 2010).
· cites it 7× “of police power; (2) equitable relief is an appropriate remedy for the destruction of access even withr *809 out a showing of irreparable harm; (3) even if a showing of irreparable harm is required, the plaintiffs were irreparably harmed by the road closure because there is no…”
Mierzejewski v. Brownell, 925 A.2d 1126 (Conn. App. Ct. 2007).
· cites it 2× “The defendant subsequently filed an answer, five special defenses and a five count counterclaim, including easement by necessity, easement by estoppel, implied appurtenant easement, easement by prescription and right-of-way pursuant to General Statutes § 13a-55. A trial to the…”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the
Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and
treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.