Fort Morgan Civic Association, Inc., and Charles A. Browdy v. City of Gulf Shores

Summary

The court held that the annexation was not invalid merely because it used a long, narrow corridor, because the corridor included substantial property beyond the public-road right-of-way and the law did not require corridor property to be privately owned. It nevertheless held the annexation void because the evidence did not establish that the State owned two included parcels or had acquired them by adverse possession, and the petition therefore lacked the signatures of all property owners. The judgment was reversed and remanded, and later annexations relying on the invalid annexation for contiguity were also void. Justice Murdock, concurring in the result, would have treated the corridor as an impermissible long-lasso annexation and questioned applying the ore tenus standard to documentary-title issues.