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The Honorable Timothy E. Johns <br /> July 21, 1999 <br /> Page 5 <br /> Similarly, in Watson v. Greely, 69 Ca1.App. 643, 232 P. 475 <br /> (CA 1924), the court distinguished roads that actually had been <br /> built or constructed from roads which had only been "laid out." <br /> In Watson, the definition of a "highway" under the relevant <br /> statute was as follows: <br /> In all counties of this state public highways are <br /> roads, streets, alleys, lanes, courts, places, trails, <br /> and bridges, laid out or erected as such by the public, <br /> or if laid out or erected by others, dedicated or <br /> abandoned to the public [.j <br /> Id., 69 Ca1.App. at 649, 232 P. at 478. The court in <br /> distinguishing between the two types of highways made the <br /> following observation:' <br /> [T]he words `laid out' do not in themselves imply the <br /> building or construction of a structure or other work. <br /> One about to build a house would not say that he <br /> intended to `lay out' a house, much less would he say <br /> after it was built or completed that it had been `laid <br /> out.' Nor would those words be the apt ones to use in <br /> expressing the idea of the building and completion of a <br /> levee or a canal or a ditch. Hence, it is only <br /> reasonable to assume that if the legislature, in <br /> defining highways, intended to say that only such ways <br /> as had roads upon them were county highways, it would <br /> not have used the phrase "laid <br /> out" as descriptive thereof, but would have said that <br /> those ways only are highways upon and over which roads <br /> have been built, and, naturally, would have employed <br /> more apposite words or phrases in defining the same. <br /> Id., 69 Cal.App. at 649-50, 232 P. at 478. <br /> One might read the s~atute to mean that in order for a road <br /> <br /> to be considered a public highway all three elements (opened, <br /> _aid out, and built) must be satisfied. We do not agree with <br /> <br />