Opinion ID: 1165790
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Court Decisions

Text: Two years after its adoption, the landmark case of Eisenbach v. Hatfield, 2 Wash. 236, 26 Pac. 539 (1891), brought article 17 of the constitution to the Supreme Court for construction and interpretation. The five-man court [17] was unusually well qualified to consider it. [18] Plaintiff, the owner of upland property abutting the high-water mark of Puget Sound, claiming he was entitled to certain littoral rights, sought to enjoin defendants from maintaining and using certain improvements upon tidelands in front of the property. The improvements had been erected prior to March 26, 1890, were in actual use for commerce, trade and business, and subject to purchase by defendants under Laws of 1889-90, § 11, p. 435. (See supra. ) [4] At the outset, we emphasize, as does the Eisenbach opinion, that riparian rights in the several states are settled by the respective states for themselves. The decision was made when the constitution was adopted in 1889 and confirmed by the admission of the state into the federal union upon an equal basis with other states. The state of Washington asserts its ownership to the beds and shores of all navigable waters in the state up to and including the line of ordinary high tide, in waters where the tide ebbs and flows.... Const. art. 17, § 1. The constitutional assertion of state ownership is clear and unambiguous. As Judge Anders said in his well-considered opinion, it is scarcely necessary to look beyond our own constitution and laws for authority to guide us to a conclusion. In the Eisenbach case, plaintiff contended that whatever may be the title of the state to the soil under tide water, he, by virtue of his contiguity to the water, had certain rights in the shore peculiar to himself. He claimed a vested property right (a) to wharf out opposite his upland and have unobstructed access to the navigable water in front of his property and (b) to acquire by accretion land that might thereafter be formed. After a meticulous analysis of the authorities, this court said: The foregoing decisions of the highest judicial tribunal of the United States, without other or further authority, would seem to settle, beyond controversy, the question of title to the tide lands of this state, and to leave no doubt whatever that they belong to the state in actual propriety, and that the state has full power to dispose of the same, subject to no restrictions save those imposed upon the legislature by the constitution of the state and the constitution of the United States; and, if this be true, it necessarily follows that no individual can have any legal right whatever to claim any easement in, or to impose any servitude upon, the tide waters within the limits of the state, without the consent of the legislature. (Italics ours.) The court concluded: We think the authorities abundantly show that a riparian proprietor on the shore of the sea, or its arms, has no rights as against the state or its grantees to extend wharves in front of his land below high water mark. The court did not completely resolve plaintiff's second contention in the Eisenbach case  his claimed vested right to future accretion. The court said: we are unable to see how one can have a present vested right to that which does not exist, and which may never have an existence. (Italics ours.) The court did, however, point out that the authorities to the contrary were based either upon statutes or local customs, and are therefore not precedents binding upon us. [5, 6] That which did not exist when Eisenbach was decided  accretion seaward of upland property  now exists. We conclude that its ownership is resolved by the rationale of Eisenbach and that accretion formed since November 11, 1889 is an addition to state-owned property, not to upland property. As the court said: The result of our investigation of the authorities leads us to the conclusion that riparian proprietors on the shore of the navigable waters of the state have no special or peculiar rights therein as an incident to their estate. To hold otherwise would be to deny the power of the state to deal with its own property as it may deem best for the public good. Our conclusion is not startling. It is simply a reaffirmance of a rule of property established by many prior superior court decisions heretofore discussed, and of the rule relied upon over the years in a myriad of land transactions between individuals and between the state and individuals. At the next session of the Supreme Court the questions discussed in Eisenbach were again submitted to and re-examined by the court in Harbor Line Comm'rs v. State ex rel. Yesler, 2 Wash. 530, 27 Pac. 550 (1891). The court said: The court is still of the opinion that, as against the state, a littoral owner, simply as such owner, can assert no valuable rights below the line of ordinary high tide. The somewhat careful examination which I have given this case has confirmed my opinion that at common law the sovereign power (resting in England in parliament) could take such lands without compensation, and absolutely exclude the littoral proprietors from any rights thereto. The state's constitutional assertion of ownership in 1889 terminated any rights the upland owner may have had to future accretion. Thereafter, the possible rights of an upland owner are those that might be established by the legislature. This conclusion is fortified by the court's opinion in Washougal & LaCamas Transp. Co. v. Dalles P. & A. Nav. Co., 27 Wash. 490, 68 Pac. 74 (1902), wherein the state's grantee of shorelands sought to claim shorelands created in part by erosion (the opposite of accretion) and by debris caught and held by pilings. The court held: It cannot be that shore lands created by the erosion of the banks of a stream within the boundaries of a private claim inure to the benefit of the state; nor can the state claim, as shore lands, fills in a river caused by artificial means. In the instant case plaintiff's (respondent's) argument in support of the judgment of the trial court orbits around three decisions: Borax Consol. Ltd. v. Los Angeles, 296 U.S. 10, 80 L.Ed. 9, 56 Sup. Ct. 23 (1935), Ghione v. State, 26 Wn.2d 635, 175 P.2d 955 (1946), and United States v. Washington, 294 F.2d 830 (9th Cir.1961). It was apparently the third decision which triggered this action. We do not find the three cases apposite. Borax, supra, establishes the rule that mean high tide (the average height of all high waters through a complete tidal cycle) is the criterion for ordinary high water. [19] The case does not involve the question of accretion. Some of the language in Ghione, supra, read without reference to the particular facts before the court, seems to lend weight to respondent's argument in support of the judgment. This case, however, involves the ownership of the bed of two rivers, first surveyed in 1865. River courses had changed gradually over the years; one was changed artificially in 1913. Finally one river ceased to flow when the level of the water of Lake Washington was lowered in 1915. The case does not involve tidelands. We have no quarrel with the decision as applied to the facts; we do not, however, deem it controlling of the instant case. [7] In United States v. Washington, 294 F.2d 830 (1961), certain lots in Grays Harbor abutting on the Pacific Ocean belonged to the federal government subject to a trust patent issued in 1916 to Samson Johns, a Quinault Indian. The lots were at all times part of the public domain until patented. The court applied federal law and determined that accretion belonged to the uplands owned by it subject to the trust patent. We do not question the federal government's right over its own property, but the rules applied by the United States Court of Appeals do not override the established rules of property of the sovereign state in a controversy between it and one of its citizens. In conclusion, we hold that the state acquired ownership of tidelands in actual propriety November 11, 1889. The property line is the line of ordinary high tide, which we equate to mean high tide on that date. Littoral rights of upland owners were terminated. Upland owners have only those rights subsequently recognized by legislative enactment. All accretion subsequent to November 11, 1889 is owned by the state and may be sold or reserved as a public highway or public recreation area as the legislature shall determine. The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded for entry of judgment not inconsistent with the views herein expressed. It is so ordered. ROSELLINI, C.J., DONWORTH, FINLEY, OTT, HAMIILTON, and HALE, JJ., concur. HILL, J. (dissenting) I find myself lost in admiration at the scholarship and erudition manifested in the majority opinion. However, all the legal signposts that I can read and understand point in the opposite direction, so I am compelled to dissent. We must decide whether the westerly (seaward) boundary of Stella Hughes' property is the present mean high tide line, or whether it is the line of ordinary high tide as the state of Washington computes it to have been on November 11, 1889. It is really as simple as that. Signpost 1: Location of plaintiff's westerly (seaward) boundary is a federal question. The plaintiff traces her title to a federal patent issued before Washington became a state. This court recognized a long time ago the right of federal courts to ascertain the limit of federal grants. See Washougal & LaCamas Transp. Co. v. Dalles, P. & A. Nav. Co., 27 Wash. 490, 496, 68 Pac. 74 (1902). In Borax Consol., Ltd. v. Los Angeles, 296 U.S. 10, 80 L.Ed. 9, 56 Sup. Ct. 23 (1935), it was stated that when a federal patent is involved, the boundary between upland and tideland is necessarily a federal question. True, no accretions were involved, but it seems unlikely that this would have made any difference as to whether federal law should be applied. Signpost 2: Federal law being applicable, the shifting boundary theory applies. If federal law is applicable, then United States v. Washington , [20] 294 F.2d 280 (9th Cir.1961), cert. denied, 369 U.S. 817 (1962), is decisive. That case holds that imperceptible accretions go with the uplands whenever title to the uplands is derived from the United States. The western or seaward boundary to the property involved [21] in that case was, as here, the line between uplands and tidelands. The present line of mean high tide, which was defined as the average elevation of all high tides at a given location through a complete tidal cycle of 18.6 years, was held to be that boundary. This definition was formulated by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey and is part of what has been called the shifting boundary theory. 2 Shalowitz, Shore and Sea Boundaries, 503 note 34. This is the western or seaward line fixed by the trial court in this case, and it should be affirmed. If this seems a ridiculously short and simple solution of the apparently complex problem with which the majority opinion deals, I can only say that it is the result dictated by common law, [22] and (as we have seen) by the federal law. It is a plain and well-traveled legal path. To arrive at the result the state desires (and the majority approves) a new, circuitous and rather devious route, rarely explored must be followed. This is conceded in the state's brief when it says: It is a rare occurrence, of course, when a state denies a riparian owner title to tidelands[ [23] ] that have become fast lands by slow and imperceptible accretion, but at least two other states have done so. I would extend my discussion to point out four interesting circumstances that have been lost sight of, or at least have been obscured, to date: 1. We have not previously defined the exact meaning of the phrase line of ordinary high tide, as used in art. 17, § 1 of our state constitution. The case of Harkins v. Del Pozzi, 50 Wn.2d 237, 240, 310 P.2d 532 (1957) states: The line of ordinary high tide is that line which the water impresses on the soil by covering it for sufficient periods to deprive the soil of vegetation and destroy its value for agricultural purposes. However, the authority cited for this proposition is an Idaho case which was actually concerned with the ordinary high water mark on Lake Pend Oreille. The Circuit Court of Appeals rejected such a definition in United States v. Washington, supra , saying: In the case of tidal waters such as are involved here, the high-water mark means the line of high water as determined by the course of the tides, not as determined by physical markings made upon the ground by the water. The latter method of making this determination, which was followed by the district court, is appropriate only in the case of streams and other non-tidal waters which have no absolute ascertainable level because of variations of flow from a multitude of causes. (p. 834) There is also dictum in Narrows Realty Co. Inc. v. State, 52 Wn.2d 843, 844 n. 3, 329 P.2d 836 (1958), which defines the phrase as: ... line of `ordinary high tide,' that is, the usual or ordinary high-water mark, the limit reached by the `neap tides,' those tides which happen between the full and change of the moon twice in every 24 hours ... 30 Words & Phrases (Perm. ed.) 253. Neither of these cases involved imperceptible accretions or were concerned with the problem of possible shifting boundaries. The question of whether the line of ordinary high tide is a shifting line is squarely presented here, and I believe the definition of this constitutional phrase should (and perhaps must) be identical with the definition of mean high tide heretofore quoted and adopted by the federal courts. 2. The state's ownership of the beds and shores of all navigable waters in the state up to and including the line of ordinary high tide, in waters where the tide ebbs and flows.... Const. art. 17, § 1. is not questioned. Any rights of riparian or littoral owners in such beds and shores have properly been held to present a question of local law. Such a case was Eisenbach v. Hatfield, 2 Wash. 236, 26 Pac. 539 (1891), on which the state and the majority place great reliance. The case dealt solely with the relative rights of the state and the upland owner in the tidelands, the court holding that the upland owner had no right to extend a wharf beyond the high-water mark. The court specifically declined to decide whether plaintiff would be entitled to future accretions to his land. No question, as to the complete control of the state over beds and shores of all navigable waters is raised. Hence, the Eisenbach case has, it seems to me, no application. The state had, on November 11, 1889, and the state has today and has had at all intervening times, title to the beds and shores of all navigable waters of the state lying seaward of the line of ordinary high tide (properly equated to mean the line of mean high tide, as defined herein). The state loses no tidelands by the shifting boundary, because the accreted land has become fastland, and it always has had title to the shore and beach between ordinary high tide (mean high tide) and extreme low tide. But, by the fixed-boundary rule, which Washington and at least two other states have invented, the upland owner loses the fastland, which has been added to his upland by slow and imperceptible accretion, and his contact with the line of mean high tide which, in many instances, may have been the reason for the acquisition of the property. It is apparent also that the purpose of the state is not primarily to make a greater area available for public use, but to dispose of such accreted lands to private individuals and put a new upland owner between the grantees of the original upland owner and the line of mean high tide. That the state does not consider accretion as shore or beach, is evidenced by its sale thereof, for the state certainly would not disregard the statutory declaration that [S]hore and beach of the Pacific Ocean, ... between ordinary high tide [mean high tide] and extreme low tide ... shall remain forever open to the use of the public. RCW 79.16.170 and that no part thereof shall ever be sold, conveyed, leased or otherwise disposed of. (RCW 79.16.171) 3. The really pertinent decision in Washington is not the Eisenbach case, which has nothing to do with imperceptible accretions, but the case of Ghione v. State, 26 Wn.2d 635, 175 P.2d 955 (1946). The state asserted there, as it does here, that it was entitled to all lands covered by navigable waters in 1889. The state also contended that it was entitled to all lands submerged by navigable waters subsequent to 1889. The court discussed a number of cases  including Eisenbach and an 1899 statute on accretions (cited here by the majority)  before adopting a shifting boundary theory which vested title to imperceptible accretions in the upland owner. The majority seeks to distinguish the Ghione case because it involved a river, but the court there believed that the shifting boundary theory applied to both tidewaters and fresh waters, and there is no apparent reason for distinguishing between them. 4. No consideration has been given to the effect of the fixed boundary theory where there has been an erosion instead of an accretion. We can only speculate as to how the majority opinion would read if this were an erosion case. At certain places, the 1889 line of ordinary high tide or mean high tide is now a long way out in the Pacific Ocean, in consequence of erosion, and the upland owner has seen his upland become tideland to which he has heretofore thought he had no title. Under the majority rule, the upland owner would continue to have title to the 1889 line, and the public, seemingly, would have to swim to enjoy its highway and beach rights. Only under the shifting boundary rule will the rights of the public always be preserved in the property in the beds and shores of all navigable waters in the state, up to and including the line of ordinary high tide  in waters where the tide ebbs and flows. I would follow the federal cases, adhere to the shifting boundary rule, and affirm the trial court. HUNTER, J., concurs with HILL, J. April 14, 1966. Petition for rehearing denied.