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Wis. Stat. § 82.31

Validation of highways

Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case Affeldt v. Green Lake County (2011)

Most recently applied in 351 Wis. 2d 665 - Village of Brown Deer v. Balisterri (October 2013)

2003 a. 214 ss. 21 to 23.

How often courts cite this section

20062010201310
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) RECORDED HIGHWAYS. Any recorded highway that has been laid out under this chapter is a legal highway only to the extent that it has been opened and worked for 3 years. Any laid out highway that has not been fully 882.31 TOWN HIGHWAYS and sufficiently described or recorded or for which the records have been lost or destroyed is presumed to be 66 feet wide.

(2) UNRECORDED HIGHWAYS.

(a) Except as provided in pars.

(b) and (c), any unrecorded highway that has been worked as a public highway for 10 years or more is a public highway and is presumed to be 66 feet wide.

(b) No road or bridge built upon the bottoms and sloughs of the Mississippi River by citizens or a municipality of any other state shall become a legal highway or a charge upon the town in which the road is located unless upon petition the highway is legally laid out by the town board.

(c) No lands granted for highway purposes that did not become a legal highway prior to July 1, 1913, shall become a legal highway unless the grant is accepted by the town board or by the town meeting of the town where the lands and proposed highway are located, and until a resolution of acceptance of the grant is recorded in the office of the town clerk.

Official source: Wisconsin State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Wisconsin statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.