In Rogers v. Board of County Road Commissioners of Kent County, 319 Mich 661 (1948), the Michigan Supreme Court held that a county road commission committed a continuing trespass when it left a steel anchor post embedded in a landowner’s meadow after its seasonal license to place a snow fence there had expired, and that governmental immunity did not shield the county from liability for the resulting injury.
The Facts Behind the Case
The Kent County Road Commission held a license from a landowner to erect a snow fence on his property each winter. The arrangement was specific: the commission could place the fence and its steel anchor posts on the land during the winter months, and it was to remove them in the spring.
In 1945, the commission took down the fence but left a steel post protruding several inches above the ground in the landowner’s meadow. Later that year, the landowner was mowing the meadow when his mowing machine struck the hidden post. He was thrown from the machine and fatally injured.
What the Court Held
The Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the commission’s failure to remove the post converted its lawful winter presence on the land into an unlawful one. The license authorized the fence and posts only for their seasonal purpose. Once that purpose ended and spring arrived, anything the commission left behind sat on the property without permission. That leftover post was a continuing trespass on private land.
The second half of the ruling is what gives the case its weight. The court held that governmental immunity does not protect a county from liability for a continuing trespass. A road commission acting on private property under a limited license cannot invoke immunity to escape the consequences of exceeding that license. The commission’s authority ended where the terms of the license ended, and once it did, the commission stood in the same position as any other trespasser.
Why the License Point Matters
The reasoning turns on the scope of permission. The landowner had not given the commission a general right to occupy the meadow. He had given it permission for a defined purpose, bounded in time and equipment. Anything outside those boundaries was never authorized.
That framing carries beyond snow fences. Whenever a government entity is on private land by permission, agreement, or limited license, its lawful presence ends when the terms end. What remains after that is trespass, and the county carries the liability.
Rogers and Road Commission Activity on Private Land
The case is often cited in disputes over what a road commission may do on land it does not own. Michigan’s highway-by-user statute, MCL 221.20, allows a private road to become a public highway after 10 years of public travel combined with public maintenance.1Michigan Legislature. Michigan Compiled Laws 221.20 – Public Highway While that statute is running, a commission grading or plowing a road across private property is building toward a possible future claim. Rogers sets the limit on what the commission can do in the meantime.
A commission that stays within its authority is on solid ground. One that exceeds it, by leaving equipment behind, expanding work beyond the traveled surface, or treating private ground as though it were already public right-of-way, is exposed to trespass liability under Rogers. Governmental immunity is not a defense to that trespass.
The principle works the same way after a highway by user has been established. Once the statutory period runs and a public right-of-way exists, the commission’s authority is confined to that corridor. Work or equipment outside it remains a potential trespass on the adjoining private land.
What Landowners Can Take From the Ruling
The practical takeaway for a Michigan landowner dealing with a road commission is that permission is a boundary, not a blank check. If you grant a commission a license to enter your property for a specific purpose, write down what that purpose is and when it ends. Keep records of what was placed on the land and what was supposed to come off it.
If a commission leaves equipment or materials behind after the purpose has ended, Rogers treats that as a continuing trespass. The landowner does not have to accept it. And because the Supreme Court refused to extend governmental immunity to this kind of conduct, the county cannot avoid responsibility by pointing to its status as a government body.
The same logic applies when a commission is doing work on land that may or may not already be public right-of-way. The commission’s activity has to fit within whatever authority it actually holds. If it does not, the fact that the actor is a county road commission does not change the analysis. A trespass is a trespass, and under Rogers, the commission answers for it.
The Continuing Trespass Idea
One reason Rogers still gets cited is the way it characterizes the wrong. The post was not a single act of trespass that happened in the spring of 1945 and then ended. It was a continuing condition on the property, present every day the post remained in the ground. That framing has consequences for how such claims are pleaded and defended, because a continuing trespass is treated differently from a single completed act, and the injury in Rogers occurred well after the post was first left behind.
For anyone dealing with government-placed equipment, structures, or fill left on private property, the Rogers characterization is the starting point. So long as the object remains, the trespass continues, and the governmental character of the actor does not extinguish the claim.