Court: Washington Supreme Court; June 29, 1961; Washington; State Supreme Court
Plaintiffs Kacks and Stockwells, along with defendants Gibbons, are involved in a legal dispute to quiet title to portions of Government Lot 1, Section 32, Township 35, North, Range 2, East W.M., located on Weaverling's Spit, Fidalgo Island, near Anacortes, Washington. The conflict centers on two main issues: ownership of a fifty-five-foot wide strip of land and a property known as the meander strip along the shore of Lot 1. The trial court ruled that the fifty-five-foot strip belongs to the Gibbons, and that they also own part of the meander strip through adverse possession, while the remainder of the meander strip is owned by the Kacks and Stockwells. Additionally, the Gibbons possess littoral and riparian rights over the entire meander strip.
All parties trace their ownership to a government land patent issued in 1862, predating Washington's statehood. According to Article 17.2 of the Washington State Constitution, this patent grants title to land above the ordinary high tide line or the government meander line, whichever is farther seaward. The meander line is identified as being seaward of the ordinary high tide line along most of Lot 1's shores. For clarity, the court will refer to land above the ordinary high tide line as 'uplands' and land between this line and the meander line as the 'meander strip.' The document includes a table of historical conveyances that establish the ownership lineage for Lot 1.
The document outlines a series of property conveyances, beginning with the U.S. Government granting Government Lot 1 to James Weaverling in 1862, followed by a series of transactions involving various parties, including Charles Weaverling, Amos Bowman, and Fidalgo Bay Land Company, up to a contract in 1954 between Marie Kack and Richard Stockwell regarding Government Lot 1. The central issue concerns the ownership of a fifty-five-foot strip of land along the dividing line between the Eastern Uplands and the remainder of Lot 1, which was first established in an 1889 deed.
The trial court found a monument allegedly marking the section corner, integral to determining the dividing line, to be correctly placed according to surveyor Frank Gilkey's testimony. Discrepancies in witness accounts regarding the monument's original location did not alter this conclusion, as the court's acceptance of Gilkey's survey was supported by substantial evidence and will not be overturned on appeal.
The ruling, which denotes that the true dividing line is approximately fifty-five feet west of an old, dilapidated fence, effectively grants title to the disputed strip to the Gibbons. The Kacks and Stockwells argued for title based on adverse possession and acquiescence but were initially dismissed by the trial court under the presumption that a grantor in possession after a conveyance holds in subservience to the grantee. However, the document notes an exception exists when a grantor mistakenly believes they still possess part of the conveyed property. The court concluded that the general rule was misapplied in this case, leading to a reversal of that judgment. The case is remanded for the trial court to reconsider the Kacks' and Stockwells' claims of adverse possession and acquiescence.
The case of Wood v. Nelson (1961) is relevant and should be considered by the trial court upon remand due to its similar factual circumstances regarding a line fence. The ownership of 'meander strips' is in question, particularly concerning the 1889 conveyance from Charles Weaverling to Amos Bowman. This conveyance specifically describes a portion of Lot 1, indicating the boundaries and high-water marks, but does not include the meander strip east of the dividing line. A legal principle states that when a deed contains conflicting specific and general descriptions, the specific description prevails unless there is clear intent otherwise. This deed lacks any indication that the general description should take precedence. Consequently, the trial court correctly interpreted the deed as conveying only the eastern uplands to Gibbons' predecessors, excluding the meander strip.
Further supporting this interpretation is a subsequent 1891 deed from Weaverling to Bowman, which explicitly conveyed riparian and littoral rights concerning Lot 1, reinforcing that the 1889 deed did not include the meander strip. If the 1889 deed had conveyed the meander strip, the 1891 deed would be unnecessary. The evidence shows that Weaverling did not own any tide lands associated with Lot 1, contradicting the respondents' claim that the 1891 deed conveyed the entire meander strip to Bowman.
Article 17.1 of the Washington State Constitution states that all tide lands not privately owned before statehood belong to the State. The Weaverling patent only conveyed title up to the ordinary high tide line and did not intend to include the meander strip in the second part of the 1891 deed. If it had, the grant of littoral and riparian rights in the first part would be unnecessary. The trial court concluded that Weaverling intended to grant Bowman the right to purchase adjacent tidelands, supported by state legislation from 1889-90 that gave upland owners preferential purchasing rights for tidelands. The court referenced a precedent (Bleakley v. Lake Washington Mill Co.) that classified property like the meander strip as uplands for determining purchasing rights. Consequently, Bowman was interpreted to have received the right to purchase the tidelands associated with Lot 1, which was later assigned to Fidalgo Bay Land Co., who purchased the tidelands from the State in 1917. Weaverling retained the meander strip and transferred it to Marie Kack in a 1954 deed, excluding the eastern uplands described similarly to the 1889 deed. The Gibbons claim title to the meander strip through adverse possession, while the Kacks and Stockwells challenge this claim. The trial court found substantial evidence supporting the Gibbons' adverse possession claim to the meander strip adjacent to the eastern uplands. The case is remanded for further proceedings, with costs of appeal shared equally among the parties, with each responsible for their own brief printing costs. The justices concurred, and a petition for rehearing was denied.
