Court Opinion

ID: 93464
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-28 16:07:20+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:46.757530
License: Public Domain

146 U.S. 646 (1892)
YESLER
v.
WASHINGTON HARBOR LINE COMMISSIONERS.
No. 912.
Supreme Court of United States.
Argued October 24, 25, 1892.
Decided December 19, 1892.
ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON.
*653 Mr. Thomas R. Shepard and Mr. A.H. Garland for plaintiff in error. Mr. Andrew F. Burleigh and Mr. Charles E. Shepard were on Mr. Shepard's brief.
Mr. W.C. Jones, Attorney General of the State of Washington, for defendants in error.
Mr. John H. Mitchell and Mr. Beriah Brown, Jr., filed a brief for Baer, intervenor.
Mr. T.N. McPherson and Mr. Edwin B. Smith, counsel for plaintiff in error in No. 639, filed a brief, by leave of court.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.
The averment in relator's petition is that "he is now and has been for thirty years last past the owner of the following-described property, to wit, the property commonly known as Yesler's wharf and dock and the upland abutting on the shore upon which said wharf and dock were constructed." It is said in argument that he is an original patentee of the United States, under the "Donation Act" of September 27, 1850, (9 Stat. 496, c. 76,) of a tract of about one hundred and sixty acres of land, entered by him in 1852, embracing all the *654 upland mentioned in the petition, and bounded on the west by the meander line of Elliott Bay. But this is not so stated in the petition, and whatever might be inferred as to the character and source of his ownership, it cannot reasonably be held that relator by this allegation specially set up or claimed a title, right, privilege or immunity under the Constitution, or a statute of, or authority exercised under, the United States in this behalf. In other words, the ground of our jurisdiction cannot be rested upon the denial by the state court of a right claimed by plaintiff in error, in respect to his ownership, under an act of Congress. But it is contended that the contemplated action of the Harbor Line Commissioners would be in violation of the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, as amounting to a deprivation of property without due process of law; and also that it would be in conflict with the act of Congress, entitled "An act making appropriations for the construction, repair and preservation of certain public works on rivers and harbors, and for other purposes," approved September 19, 1890. 26 Stat. 426, 454, c. 907.
Section 7 of that act declares that it shall not be lawful to build any wharf, pier, dolphin, boom, dam, weir, breakwater, bulk-head, jetty or structure of any kind outside of established harbor lines, or in any navigable waters of the United States where no harbor lines are or may be established, without the permission of the Secretary of War, in any port, roadstead, haven, harbor, navigable river or other waters of the United States, in such manner as shall obstruct or impair navigation, commerce or anchorage in said waters; and by section 12, in amendment of section 12 of the river and harbor act of August 11, 1888, the Secretary of War was authorized to cause harbor lines to be established when essential to the preservation and protection of harbors, beyond which no piers, wharves, bulk-heads or other works should be extended or deposits made, except under such regulations as might be prescribed from time to time by him. Penalties are denounced for the violation of either of these sections. We do not understand that any conflict of jurisdiction over the regulation of the *655 harbor of Seattle will be precipitated by what the defendants propose to do, or that relator could sustain his invocation of judicial interference on such a theory. If the location and establishment of harbor lines by these commissioners is actually in violation of the laws of the United States, their vindication may properly be left to the general government. It is obvious that the decision of the state court in this regard was not against any title or right of relator arising under a statute of the United States.
This brings us to consider whether the contemplated proceedings would deprive Yesler of his property without due process of law. The contention seems to be that a part of his improvements are included in the strip which the constitution of Washington forbids the State from selling, or granting or relinquishing its rights over, and that, therefore, the location and establishment of the harbor lines as proposed would amount to a taking of his property without compensation. The harbor line is the line beyond which wharves and other structures cannot be extended, and a map is exhibited by counsel which shows an inner line, delineating the inner boundary of the strip referred to. This inner line, which is six hundred feet distant from the harbor line, happens to cross the outer end of relator's wharf, but the harbor line is several hundred feet away.
By the 16th section of Article I of the constitution of Washington no private property can be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation. The similar limitation upon the power of the general government, expressed in the Fifth Amendment, is to be read with the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibiting the States from depriving any person of property without due process of law, and from denying to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The amendment undoubtedly forbids any arbitrary deprivation of life, liberty or property, and secures equal protection to all under like circumstances in the enjoyment of their rights. Assuming our jurisdiction to revise the judgment of a State tribunal upholding a law authorizing the taking of private property without compensation, to be unquestionable, *656 (Kaukauna Co. v. Green Bay Co., 142 U.S. 254, 269,) we cannot accede to the position that the action of the Harbor Line Commissioners, in locating the harbor line and filing the plat, would take any of relator's property, or so injuriously affect it as to come within the constitutional inhibition. The filing of maps of definite location in the exercise of the power of eminent domain furnishes no analogy. The design of the state law is to prohibit the encroachment by private individuals and corporations on navigable waters, and to secure a uniform water front; and it does not appear from relator's application that the defendants have threatened in any manner to disturb him in his possession, nor that that which is proposed to be done tends to produce that effect. Whatever his rights, they remained the same after as before, and the proceedings, as the Supreme Court said, could not operate to constitute a cloud upon them from the standpoint of relator himself, for if nothing further could lawfully be done in the absence of legislation for his protection, that was apparent. The consequences which he deprecated were too remote to form the basis of decision. Whatever private rights or property he has by virtue of the Territorial act of 1854, or of the state act of 1890, whatever his right of access to navigable waters or to construct a wharf from his own land, we do not see that he would be deprived of any of them by the action he has sought to prohibit. It may be true that the width of the reserved strip as delineated on the map brings the inner line across the outer end of relator's wharf, in respect of which, as if it were the harbor line, he complains that his right under the act of March 26, 1890, to purchase the ground occupied by his improvements, would be interfered with; but the construction of that act is for the state court to determine, and the averments of the affidavit and alternative writ make no issue upon it, as affected by the constitutional provision. The commissioners are to locate and establish harbor lines, whereupon the area between the harbor line and the line of ordinary high tide, within not less than fifty nor more than six hundred feet of the harbor line is reserved, under the state constitution. Whether the end of relator's *657 wharf is within that area and the consequent effect, the record does not call upon us to consider.
It may properly be added that the decision of the Supreme Court indicates that in its opinion relator was not entitled to the writ of prohibition, because he had other remedies of which he might have availed himself. This was a ground broad enough to sustain the judgment irrespective of the decision of any Federal question, if such arose; but we have considered the case in the other aspect, as the ruling of the Supreme Court in this regard is perhaps not sufficiently definite for us justly to decline jurisdiction upon that ground.
Our conclusion is that no Federal question was so raised upon this record as to justify our interposition, and therefore the writ of error is
Dismissed.