When Is a Road Truly Public? The Fifth District Defines the Boundaries in Hicks v. Pope County

This featured column discusses the Fifth District Appellate Court's opinion in the case of Hicks v. Pope County Board of Commissioners and the Pope County Highway Department. Hicks v. Pope County Board of Commissioners and the Pope County Highway Department, 2023 IL App (5d) 220733 (Ill App. 2023). The plaintiff, Georgia Hicks, filed a declaratory judgment action seeking exclusive rights to the use of a property located in Golconda, Illinois. The central issue revolved around whether Hicks Road, the access route to the property, qualified as a public highway or a private driveway. The Appellate Court's decision affirmed the circuit court's ruling in favor of the defendants and intervening defendants, granting summary judgment. The court deemed Hicks Road to be a public roadway, rejecting the plaintiff's claim of private ownership.

Whose Road Is It Anyway?

What Happens When a Driveway Becomes a Highway? Just Ask Hicks Road.

This month, we’re headed down a dusty legal path that runs through rural Pope County, but don’t worry, the route is well-lit with common sense, Illinois statutes, and a healthy dose of property law. The case of Hicks v. Pope County Board of Commissioners is less about potholes and more about ownership—specifically, whether a 1.5-mile stretch known as Hicks Road is a private driveway or a bona fide public road.

A Driveway or a Highway in Disguise?

Georgia Hicks thought she knew her land. Since the 1970s, her family had been maintaining what they believed was a private driveway to their home in Golconda, Illinois. Dirt was replaced with gravel, trees were trimmed, culverts were installed. They even fenced parts off to keep it “private.” But then came a letter from the County Engineer. Cue dramatic music.

“If you don’t remove the obstructions from the road, you’re looking at fines of $50 to $500 per offense, and $50 per day for each day they remain.”

Suddenly, Hicks Road wasn't just a charming rural path. It was a battleground.

Enter the Trovillion Brothers

Like neighbors in a classic legal sitcom, the Trovillion brothers showed up with maps, memories, and a few decades’ worth of road usage. Their claim? They’d been using Hicks Road to access their land long before this dispute and so had others, from utility workers to local farmers.

They filed affidavits. The county engineer weighed in. Surveyors consulted maps dating back to the 1920s. Everyone had a story about Hicks Road. It was like This Is Your Life: Rural Easement Edition.

The Court’s Ruling: When History Takes the Wheel

The Fifth District Appellate Court took a hard look at all the evidence and concluded: Hicks Road isn’t just a driveway, it’s a prescriptive public roadway, defined under 605 ILCS 5/2-202. The plaintiff’s attempts to frame it as private lacked the legal horsepower to overcome the mountain of evidence showing long-term public use.

The motion for summary judgment alleged that there is no genuine issue of material fact that Hicks Road a/k/a Hicks Drive is a public highway pursuant to section 2-202 of the Illinois Highway Code (605 ILCS 5/2-202 (West 2020)), and as such, the plaintiff’s complaint for a declaratory judgment requesting a finding that she has the exclusive right to control the route at issue must fail. The intervening defendants relied upon on the affidavits of numerous individuals to establish that the route in question is a public highway.

Affidavits in support of summary judgment included a licensed professional land surveyor:

“In my professional opinion based upon my experience, education, and the public documents examined, including information from USGS topographic maps Exhibits 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, and 16 attached hereto, Illinois Department of Public Works Maps Exhibit 7 and 12, IDOT Map attached hereto as Exhibit 13, and relying on the published Pope County Plat Books for 2000, 2013, and 2018, and other evidence on the ground, Hicks Drive a/k/a Hicks Road is a public highway pursuant to the relevant statutes, and not a private driveway.” Id.

Several nearby property owners and residents also provided affidavits that they had regularly used Hicks Drive to access their property.

“I worked for Southeastern Illinois Electric Cooperative, Inc. from the [sic] 1978 to approximately 2009, where I would use Hicks Drive a/k/a Hicks Road to perform service and maintenance on the power grid and electric line, and emergency power restoration on the properties located along Hicks Drive a/k/a Hicks Road as far south as Scott W. Trovillion’s property at the southern end of Hicks Drive a/k/a Hicks Road.” Id.

Plaintiff filed a counter-affidavit in response to summary judgment which stated:

“The current driveway on my property began as a dirt track, put in by the owners of the property in the 1920s, as access to their home and farmland. The dirt track was on properties owned by the Rexer-Walter family who put in the dirt track.

In or about 1928, the State of Illinois made the dirt road running along the Plaintiff’s property line, between Section 18 and Section 19, into the paved road now known as Route 146.

In the 1970s, after purchasing the property, my late husband, Phillip Hicks, and I improved the dirt track into a gravel driveway, and the two of us have maintained that driveway from that time to the present date.

My late husband and I have continually graveled the entire 1 1/2 miles of the driveway since it was improved in or about 1973, and have maintained, ditched, graded, installed culverts, trimmed trees, and cleared snow for the entire length of the driveway for the past 49 years.

 Said driveway travels from Route 146 for one mile to the house in which I reside, and from my house another 1/2 mile to an abandoned house which is the property now owned by the Intervening Defendants.

I own the land on either side of this driveway and use the driveway exclusively to access my property.

The driveway on my property has been in use exclusively for access to the land owned by the persons using that driveway and has never been a public road or used by the State of Illinois or Pope County as a public road.” Id.

The court found that the plaintiff failed to provide a specific question of fact and law to dispute the defendants' claim and granted summary judgment in favor of defendants.

The only issue on Appeal was “Did the Trial Court err in its ruling granting Summary Judgment on behalf of the Defendants, Pope County Board of Commissioners and Pope County Highway Department, and the Intervening Defendants, Scott A. Trovillion and Scott W. Trovillion in deciding that the Plaintiff’s driveway was a public road?” Id. The Appellate Court found plaintiff’s argument to consist of “conclusory statements with little to no argument and no supporting authority.” Id. Plaintiff failed to cite to any authority, short of the standard for summary judgment, in support of their allegation that the circuit court’s decision was in error.

As a result, the court deemed the issue forfeited for review, affirming the circuit court's order granting summary judgment to the defendants and intervening defendants.

Legal Lesson of the Month: Gravel Doesn’t Equal Ownership

Just because you gravel it, maintain it, and call it your own doesn’t mean the law agrees,

especially if everyone and their cattle have been using that road for decades. Under Illinois law, roads can become public through longstanding use, whether there’s a fancy dedication document or not.

Townships and highway departments: This case underscores the importance of documentation, community input, and good old-fashioned record-keeping. If you’ve got a Hicks Road in your district, make sure your facts and your files are in order.

Final Thought:

Sometimes the road to clarity is a road. And in this case, the court had the last word on who it belonged to. The court's decision confirmed that Hicks Road was a public roadway, dismissing the plaintiff's claim of private ownership. The court's analysis emphasized the importance of providing clear arguments and supporting authority when appealing a summary judgment ruling. Future disputes concerning public road status in the jurisdiction will likely benefit from the Appellate Court’s assessment of the evidence presented.