Town of Benton v. Peoples Bank of Polk County

904 S.W.2d 598, 1995 Tenn. App. LEXIS 281
CourtCourt of Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedApril 28, 1995
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 904 S.W.2d 598 (Town of Benton v. Peoples Bank of Polk County) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Town of Benton v. Peoples Bank of Polk County, 904 S.W.2d 598, 1995 Tenn. App. LEXIS 281 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1995).

Opinion

OPINION

SUSANO, Judge.

The Peoples Bank of Polk County decided to enlarge its bank facility located at the northwest comer of Maggie Street and U.S. Highway 411 in Benton, Tennessee. The [599]*599bank’s plans called for the addition of two drive-through lanes to the one already in place on the south side of its building. The Town of Benton resisted the bank’s plans because the addition would physically extend out into Maggie Street, which runs east and west, thereby necessitating the closing or rerouting of that street. This controversy prompted the Town to file a complaint seeking an injunction against the bank “from committing waste, blockading, closing or in any way obstructing the use and enjoyment of Maggie Street.” After a non-jury hearing 1, the Chancellor found that the strip of land the bank intended to use was not a part of the bank’s property, but was rather a public thoroughfare.

The bank appeals, arguing that the evidence preponderates against the trial court’s finding that the property at issue belongs to the Town. The bank agrees that the trial court was correct in relying on an official 1910 plat of Benton; but it argues that the Chancellor erred when he also relied upon a survey that, the bank argues, is inconsistent with the 1910 plat. The Town argues that the evidence does not preponderate against the Chancellor’s findings. In the alternative, it contends that if the strip of land in question belongs to the bank, the public has the right to use it as a public street by virtue of the doctrine of prescriptive easement or implied dedication.

As the trial court correctly pointed out, this is a boundary line dispute rather than an action to close a street. At issue is the location of the bank’s south property line. If the bank is correct, it owns substantially all of a paved area which has served for some time as a public street, i.e., Maggie Street.

I

In March, 1974, the bank purchased four contiguous lots representing a block in the business district of the Town of Benton. Thereafter, it constructed a bank building, including a single drive-in lane on the south side of the building. The legal description of the property in the bank’s deed is as follows:

SITUATED and being in the First Civil District of Polk County, Tennessee and in the Town of Benton, and Being Lots No. One Hundred Ninety-Two (192), One Hundred Ninety-Three (193), Two Hundred Three (203), and Two Hundred Four (204) in the Town of Benton as more fully described in a plat or map dated 19102 and recorded in Plat Book 1, page 41, in the Register’s Office for Polk County, Tennessee.

The east side of the bank’s property fronts on U.S. Highway 411.

A witness for the bank testified that the bank positioned its building on the property so that it could accommodate up to three drive-in lanes, side-by-side, on the south side of the building should the demand for such drive-in service later be warranted. Bank officials also testified that the bank had installed a tube underground extending out from the existing drive-in lane next to the building so as to accommodate future drive-in expansion.

According to the testimony of the plaintiff Bobby Bishop, the bank approached the Town’s commissioners in 1974 to request permission to extend the existing portion of Maggie Street eastward and connect it to U.S. Highway 411. The bank wanted Maggie Street to pass along the southern edge of the bank’s property, thereby giving easier access for vehicular traffic to the drive-in window. Although apparently no minutes were kept of the meeting, Bishop testified that he and the other commissioners voted to let the bank extend Maggie Street.

According to the testimony of Benton’s mayor and its director of federal projects, Benton subsequently received a federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grant to pave some of the Town’s streets. Benton held public hearings on the grant application, and both the mayor and the Town’s director of federal projects testified at trial that bank officials attended one of the [600]*600meetings and spoke in support of the repaving project. Both city officials testified that some of the grant money was subsequently used in 1978 to repave Maggie Street. The Town’s street commissioner testified that he maintains the stop signs along Maggie Street, using Town money to do so. He also testified that the Town generally maintains the surface of Maggie Street. A photographic exhibit in the record before us shows the eastward extension of Maggie Street passing by and to the south of the bank building and its existing drive-in lane. There is a stop sign at the intersection of Maggie Street and U.S. Highway 411.

Sometime during 1992, the bank decided to install two additional drive-through lanes. The two new lanes would extend outward from the existing building into Maggie Street, necessitating the appropriation of the paved area of Maggie Street. The bank’s president and chief executive officer testified that he contacted the mayor to request permission to close Maggie Street and was told by the mayor that the latter recognized that the property did not belong to the Town and “we could do what we pleased with it.” Under cross-examination, the bank president stated that the mayor later called him back and said that the 1910 plat “showed that that was a [public] street.” Although the Town and bank officials continued to discuss the bank’s proposed expansion, nothing definitive occurred until the bank’s president notified the mayor that “[w]e’re going to block the road ... It’s my street.” This litigation ensued.

At trial, the Town called a registered surveyor who testified that he conducted a survey of Town property lines by “work[ing] off of the courthouse walls” and then tying in “walls, edge of pavements, any physical evidence that we could note on the ground.” The surveyor noted that the official 1910 plat of Benton conflicts with a 1945 State Department of Transportation (DOT) survey of the Town in that the plat indicates a 70-foot right-of-way for Commerce Street — a major Town thoroughfare running generally east and west — while the DOT survey reflects a 55-foot right-of-way for that street. He further testified that old fence lines shown on the 1945 DOT survey, if extended, would line up with the pavement of Maggie Street running back beyond the bank’s property, indicating that a 55 foot right-of-way was more likely than not and that Maggie Street should run straight for at least two blocks from U.S. Highway 411 westward past the bank. The Town also presented the testimony of four long-time residents of Benton, all of whom testified that a Town-maintained alleyway running along the southern edge of the property purchased by the bank existed for years prior to the bank’s purchase. One witness testified to the existence of the alley as early as “the late ’40s, early ’50s.”

The bank presented the testimony of a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) records custodian, who introduced a 1970 USDA aerial photograph which indicates that at that time no alley existed immediately south of what would later become the bank’s property. The bank also presented the testimony of the bank’s cashier who had worked at the branch since its opening in 1974. She testified that there was no street or alley running along the southern border of the property when the bank purchased it. She also denied that any entity other than the bank had ever maintained the section of Maggie Street on the bank’s south side.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
904 S.W.2d 598, 1995 Tenn. App. LEXIS 281, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/town-of-benton-v-peoples-bank-of-polk-county-tennctapp-1995.