Byrd v. The Idaho State Bd. of Land Comm'rs
| Decision Date | 02 March 2022 |
| Docket Number | 48042 |
| Court | Idaho Supreme Court |
| Parties | STEPHAN L. BYRD and ERIKA MULLINS, Petitioners-Appellants, v. THE IDAHO STATE BOARD OF LAND COMMISSIONERS, THE IDAHO DEPARTMENT OF LANDS, STEVE COFFEY, and CAL LARSON, Respondents. |
Appeal from the District Court of the First Judicial District of the State of Idaho, Bonner County. John C. Judge, District Judge.
The judgment of the district court is affirmed.
John F. Magnuson, Coeur d'Alene, for Appellants. John F Magnuson argued.
Featherston Law Firm, Chtd., Sandpoint, for Respondents Steve Coffey and Cal Larson. Brent C. Featherston argued.
Lawrence Wasden, Idaho Attorney General, Boise, for Respondents The Idaho State Board of Land Commissioners and The Idaho Department of Lands. Angela Kaufmann argued.
This action arises out of an encroachment permit denied by the Idaho Department of Lands acting on behalf of the Idaho State Board of Land Commissioners. Stephan Byrd and Erika Mullins jointly filed an application for an encroachment permit with the Idaho Department of Lands to add boat lifts to their existing two-family dock on Priest Lake. Neighbors Cal Larson and Steven Coffey filed objections to this application arguing that Coffey owns a strip of land between the ordinary high water mark of Priest Lake and the waterward boundary lines of the Appellants' properties. Following an administrative hearing, the Department denied the encroachment permit upon concluding that the record failed to show by a preponderance of the evidence that Byrd and Mullins are littoral property owners with corresponding littoral rights, a key requirement to build or enlarge encroachments on the lake under Idaho's Lake Protection Act, I.C. §§ 58-1301 to 58-1312. We affirm the district court's judgment to uphold the Department's order.
In 1951, the Diamond Match Company conveyed a large lakefront parcel to William and Mary Taylor, with the deed describing the property "to the established meander corner on lake shore; thence along lake shore line at highwater mark." The warranty deed also specified that the conveyance included "all legal interest in the lake shore fronting" the parcel. In 1967, the Taylors created three contiguous parcels out of a section of their property: Parcel T-9 (currently owned by Cal Larson), Parcel T-10 (currently owned by Erika Mullins), and Parcel T-11 (currently owned by Stephan Byrd). The deeds for each of these parcels contain roughly the same waterward boundary description: commencing from "an iron pin on the shore of Priest Lake" and extending "along the shore of Priest Lake" to additional iron pin markers "on the shore of Priest Lake." The properties have always been marketed as "waterfront" properties. They have also been treated as waterfront properties by Bonner County for tax and mapping purposes over the years. Until 2015, prior owners of the Byrd and Mullins parcels used the lakefront for swimming, wading, and other littoral uses without challenge.
The Taylors later created a fourth parcel out of their property: Parcel T-12, which was conveyed to the Chappels. This warranty deed differed from the earlier conveyances in its property description, stating: "to an iron pin on the shore of Priest Lake . . . thence along the shore of Priest Lake," "TOGETHER WITH the lands lying between the side lot lines of the above described property extended to the mean high water line of Priest Lake." Finally, the Taylors conveyed their remaining land to Ziegler Lumber Co., and the warranty deed contained similar language to the Chappel deed: the property line extends "to an iron pin" and thence "along the shore of Priest Lake," "TOGETHER WITH the lands lying between the side lot lines of the above described property extended to the mean high water line of Priest Lake." This property description also excepted the previously sold parcels currently owned by Larson, Mullins, Byrd, and Chappel respectively. Steven Coffey purchased Parcel T-12 from Ziegler Lumber in 1993 with the same legal description set forth in his warranty deed.
The record lacks the complete history of parcel conveyances and family transitions over the years, but in 2015, Mullins and Byrd each obtained their parcels, becoming adjacent neighbors between Larson and Coffey. Byrd and Mullins's predecessors had these parcels (T-10 and T-11) surveyed in 2015 as part of the sale. A note on this 2015 survey reads: "The metes and bounds description for the subject parcels (Warranty Deed Instrument No. 205177 dated August 10th, 1967) makes calls along the shore of Priest Lake - this is assumed to mean the ordinary high water line of Priest Lake as the shoreline and ordinary high water line are commonly referred to mean the same."
In 2016, Byrd and Mullins filed an encroachment permit application with the Idaho Department of Lands (hereinafter, the "Department") to build a joint-family dock. The Department approved the application without a hearing. Byrd and Mullins received their permit for a two-family dock (Permit No. L-97-S-1171) in January 2016 and later constructed the dock pursuant to this permit. Coffey now claims he wrote to the Department to object to this original encroachment permit application: No such letters from Coffey are in the record on appeal. However, there is one letter in the agency record from Carl Ritchie, a Department employee, to Coffey. The letter seems to answer Coffey's questions concerning (1) dock length variances and (2) a reference to Ross v. Dorsey, 154 Idaho 836, 303 P.3d 195 (2013), a case involving a Priest Lake dispute where Ritchie said a homeowner was "under the false pretense that he owned his lake front." The letter does not specifically refer to, or address, an express objection made by Coffey to the dock's encroachment permit, but it shows Byrd and Mullins were aware of Coffey's claim to ownership along the lake front. Ritchie wrote,
In May 2018, Byrd and Mullins filed a second encroachment permit application with the Department, this time to add two boat lifts to their existing dock and to replace two mooring buoys. Adjacent neighbors Larson and Coffey-whose properties bordered Mullins and Byrd's properties respectively-filed their objections with the Department. Coffey and Larson asserted that Byrd and Mullins were not littoral owners on Priest Lake, and, thus, should not have an encroachment much less enlarge it with the boat lifts. Coffey submitted surveys in support of his claim to show that a strip of land may exist between the parcels and the ordinary high water mark. Coffey also stated he did not object to the buoys' replacement-he only objected to the original dock and proposed boat lifts. Following this objection, Byrd and Mullins had a survey completed at the request of a Lands Resource Specialist with the Department. In the 2018 survey, the stretch of shore between the iron pins and the water's edge is approximately 20 feet at its narrowest point and 34 feet at its widest.
After a hearing on the issues, the Department issued a preliminary order that denied the encroachment permit for lack of sufficient evidence showing Byrd and Mullins were littoral owners by a preponderance of the evidence. In an effort to minimize further application difficulties, Byrd and Mullins then withdrew their application to "tak[e] such action, outside the [Department], to 'clean up' [their] littoral ownership, which [they did] not doubt." No quiet title action was filed. Instead, on March 4, 2019, Byrd and Mullins filed a third encroachment permit application with the Department identical to the second: to add two boat lifts to their existing dock as well as replace two mooring buoys. Adjacent neighbors Larson and Coffey again filed their objections with the Department, asserting that Byrd and Mullins were not littoral owners on Priest Lake.
Of note, in their objections, Larson and Coffey never asserted that Coffey owned the strip of shore between Larson's iron pins and the water's edge-they argued solely that the Byrd and Mullins properties are not lakefront parcels. Back in 1967, Larson (whose deed contains the same waterward description that is at issue here) constructed a dock into Priest Lake from the shore area off his property. The Taylors, the neighboring owners at the time, never objected to the dock's creation or existence from 1967 onward, nor did they object to the Larson's confirmation of their encroachment in 1975 following Idaho's adoption of the Lake Protection Act. Indeed, since 1967, Larson has made several encroachment applications to alter or add to his dock, with no objections from Coffey, Coffey's predecessors, or other littoral neighbors.
With an encroachment-application dispute in hand, the Department ordered a hearing and appointed Mick Thomas, Administrator of the Department's Oil and Gas Division, as the hearing officer. One piece of evidence presented at the hearing was from the Department's Lands Resource Specialist who submitted a hearing statement on behalf of Byrd and Mullins. It stated: ...
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