Van Natta v. Nys & Erickson

On Appellant’s Petition por Rehearing

ROSSMAN, J.

The plaintiff-appellant has filed a petition for a rehearing which is accompanied with a short brief. The latter, referring to onr opinion, says:

“The court has laid great stress on the assumption that plaintiff claims the right to exclude respondents from the roadway. We feel that this erroneous assumption so prejudiced plaintiff, that the court’s opinion should be reconsidered in the light of plaintiff’s true position.”

Although the plaintiff-appellant averred in his complaint that he was “the exclusive owner” of the road which is the subject matter of this suit, we did not, in our consideration of the issues, assume that the plaintiff claimed the right to exclude the respondents from the road. The record evidenced the plaintiff’s fears that the Ericksons’ log truck, passing along the narrow, winding road, might injure the plaintiff’s family when its members ventured upon the same throughfare, yet it was clear to us that the plaintiff realized that he could not bar the respondents from the road. We engaged in no erroneous assumption of the kind which the petition for a rehearing attributes to us. In our efforts to analyze the contentions and rights of the parties, we sought to envision the various situations, but we never surmised that the plaintiff claimed that he alone could use the road.

*236Although we do not believe that our opinion supports the view which the plaintiff-appellant ascribes to it in the above-quoted passage, we deem it will, since this cause has been remanded to the circuit court for further attention, to set at rest all misunderstanding.

All contentions advanced in the petition for a rehearing have received careful attention. The petition is denied.