## Facts

- P & L Investment Corporation owned 45 acres abutting U.S. Highway 90 in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana.
- In 1972, the St. Charles Parish School Board bought 35 acres from P & L to build Hahnville High School; P & L retained, among other property, a 50-foot-wide strip about 1,700 feet long along the western boundary of the school tract.
- The school site initially had access from Highway 90 via two public streets (First Street and Second Street).
- In 1973, the parish governing authority exchanged the previously dedicated Second Street for a comparable strip of P & L’s land fronting Highway 90; the acquired strip became a dedicated public roadway known as Tiger Drive.
- When Tiger Drive was constructed and paved, public authorities also paved at least 200 feet of P & L’s retained strip; P & L did not object.
- Public authorities later placed shells on additional portions of P & L’s strip and, around 1977, either the parish or the School Board paved an additional segment of the strip with concrete.
- The parish and/or the School Board maintained the roadway for more than five years, including the portion on P & L’s strip, at public expense and with P & L’s knowledge.
- The dedicated portion of Tiger Drive and the continuation over P & L’s strip were treated in practice as a single access route to the public high school.
- School officials installed a gate near the boundary between the dedicated road and P & L’s strip; P & L requested that it not be locked so P & L could reach its rear parcel.
- In 1990, P & L asserted it had never dedicated the strip; the School Board sued for a declaratory judgment that the strip had been dedicated and was a public road.

## Issues

1. Whether P & L’s 50-foot strip became subject to public use as a public road through dedication despite the absence of a formal written act.
2. What legally recognized modes of dedication apply to roads and whether P & L’s conduct satisfied implied or tacit dedication.

## Decision

- The Louisiana Supreme Court reversed the lower courts.
- The court held that P & L’s strip had been dedicated to public use and therefore constituted a public road as part of Tiger Drive.
- The court found dedication established through implied and/or tacit dedication based on P & L’s conduct, long public use, and public maintenance and improvements.

## Legal Principles

- Louisiana recognizes four modes of dedication of roads: formal, statutory, implied, and tacit.
- Dedication turns on the landowner’s intent; intent may be inferred from conduct that clearly and unmistakably indicates a purpose to dedicate property to public use.
- Implied or tacit dedication may be proved without a recorded written act when public use and governmental maintenance or improvements occur over time with the owner’s knowledge and acquiescence.
- Owner silence or cooperation in the face of public construction, maintenance, and long-standing public use supports an inference of dedication; conduct inconsistent with exclusive private control weighs against a claim of no dedication.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that P & L’s prolonged acquiescence in public paving, maintenance, and use of the strip as the primary access route to a public high school demonstrated a clear intent to dedicate the property to public use, making the strip a public road.


St. Charles Parish Sch. Bd. v. P & L Inv. Corp., 674 So. 2d 218 (La. 1996)