John Echeverria and Carin Pratt v. Town of Tunbridge

Summary

The Vermont Supreme Court held that the Town of Tunbridge has authority to maintain and repair public trails crossing private property. The Court concluded that trails defined by statute as public rights-of-way carry the implied authority to perform maintenance and repairs reasonably necessary to preserve public access for authorized uses. The Court affirmed the superior court’s grant of summary judgment for the Town.

Holdings

1. Because public trails are defined as public rights-of-way, towns have authority to maintain and repair them to the extent reasonably necessary to ensure public access for the statutory purposes of access to abutting properties or recreational use.
2. The 1986 recodification did not implicitly eliminate towns' authority to maintain and repair public trails.
3. Dillon's Rule does not bar the Town from maintaining and repairing public trails because such maintenance is incident to and implied by the Town's statutory authority to define and regulate uses of public rights-of-way.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Vermont statutes authorize a town to maintain and repair public trails that cross private property.
2. Whether the 1986 recodification of Title 19, which removed trails from the statutory definition of highways and stated that towns are not responsible for trail maintenance, implicitly eliminated towns' preexisting authority to maintain and repair public trails.
3. Whether Dillon's Rule precludes the Town from maintaining and repairing the trails absent an express statutory authorization.

Disposition

affirmed