Opinion ID: 1165790
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Administrative and Superior Court Interpretations

Text: The record before us supports the conclusion that the commissioner of public lands has established the common boundary between upland property and state-owned land to be the line of ordinary high tide where it existed November 11, 1889. Over the years, 73 lawsuits affecting 322 private ownerships have been instituted against the state to establish this boundary. The judgments of the superior court are before us as exhibits in the instant case. None was appealed. The state accurately described these judgments when it said in its opening brief: In every one-of these cases the court has divided the accreted lands on the same formula: those accreted lands formed prior to statehood are the property of the private upland owner; those accreted lands formed since statehood are public beach and shore. The language of these judgments varies in minor respects. In some the 1889 line of ordinary high tide is related to a surveyed corner and described by metes and bounds; in others it is described as being a stated number of feet above the line of mean lower low water, thus a standard set by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey is recognized; in still others, the 1889 line is described with particularity by reference to the Washington Coordinate System, South Zone, as claimed by the state in the instant case. In practically all of the judgments the 1889 line as surveyed and described therein is judicially determined to be the line of ordinary high tide where it existed on the 11th day of November, 1889, established by the commissioner of public lands. Thus over the years the only state constitutional court of general jurisdiction established a rule of property which has been relied upon and applied on many occasions when the state has sold tidelands pursuant to statutory authority. Following the decision of this court in Harkins v. Del Pozzi, 50 Wn.2d 237, 310 P.2d 532 (1957), the superior court judgments entered thereafter further described the 1889 line as the line which the water impressed on the soil by covering it for sufficient periods to deprive the soil of vegetation. This added nothing to the line which had already been surveyed and established. In Shelton Logging Co. v. Gosser, 26 Wash. 126, 66 Pac. 151 (1901), this court had already considered the line of vegetation and the line of mean high tide to be the same. Further, in Harkins, supra, there was an unchallenged finding of fact equating the line of ordinary high water with the line of mean high tide. No further description was necessary.