Columbia Rentals, Inc. v. State
| Decision Date | 16 March 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. 44464,44464 |
| Citation | 89 Wn.2d 819,576 P.2d 62 |
| Parties | COLUMBIA RENTALS, INC., a Washington Corporation, Respondent, v. The STATE of Washington, Appellant. ALICE B. FOUST PROPERTIES, INC., a corporation, Elmer Branham and Ethel Branham, his wife, Gail Billings, Wilbur H. "Pat" Bell and Colleen Bell, his wife, C. L. Collette and Anneta Collette, his wife, Harold C. Carson and Peggy Carson, his wife, James R. Crenshaw, M. C. Curtis and Jane Doe Curtis, his wife, Leland B. Carr and Mary A. Carr, his wife, Donald A. Flynn and Judith M. Flynn, his wife, Milton A. Foland and Ruth S. Foland, his wife, Woodrow J. Gifford, Elmer E. Goehler and Veva M. Goehler, his wife, C. E. Hanson and Ardith Hanson, his wife, and Leslie Hanson, Carl R. Krieger, Lucy Kemme, J. B. Krausse, William A. Langevin, Lewis M. Magill and Orla F. Magill, his wife, Roy McKee and Ada McKee, his wife, Robert M. MacDonald and E. Lucille MacDonald, his wife, John H. Markham, M. J. Millam and Josephine Millam, his wife, Paul Pelley, Charles Petterson, H. F. Phillips, William Rautio and Neva M. Rautio, his wife, Walter J. Richardson and Maxine H. Richardson, his wife, A. D. Reynolds and Iris Waid Reynolds, his wife, and Adeline E. Waid, P. L. Shepler, Charles B. Strauhal, R. H. Umphress and Agnes Umphress, his wife, Adele E. Vik and Maud D. Smith, Clarence W. Ward and Margaret A. Ward, his wife, George West and Dorothea West, his wife, Robert F. Whitten and Jane A. Whitten, his wife, Intervenor-Respondents, v. The STATE of Washington, Appellant. |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
Slade Gorton, Atty. Gen., Malachy R. Murphy, Deputy Atty. Gen., Carol A. Smith, Asst. Atty. Gen., Olympia, for appellant.
Charles B. Welsh, South Bend, for respondent.
The State appeals from a summary judgment extending the western boundary of each of respondents' ocean-front properties to a line west of that established in prior quiet title actions. We reverse.
Respondents, in almost every instance, are successors in interest to the plaintiffs in 74 quiet title actions previously brought against the State in Pacific County Superior Court. The last of those actions was resolved in 1961. The suits were brought because title insurance companies insisted on a judicial determination fixing the ocean-front boundaries before title insurance would be issued.
Judgment in nearly all of the cases was entered by agreement of the parties. All of the plaintiffs in the cases were represented by attorneys and almost all of the judgments entered included findings of fact and conclusions of law. None of those judgments was appealed.
The judgments determined that the western boundary of respondents' land fronting on the Pacific Ocean was the line either described as the vegetation line of November 11, 1889, or the line of mean high tide as of that date. Both descriptions purport to describe the same line. Title to the accreted land west of that line was quieted and established in the State. The land accreted is substantial, ranging up to a quarter of a mile in places.
In a separate action in 1967, the U. S. Supreme Court reversed this court and held that the owner of upland property conveyed by the United States prior to statehood was entitled to the accretions which had formed along the land. Hughes v. Washington, 389 U.S. 290, 88 S.Ct. 438, 19 L.Ed.2d 530 (1967). That case also established that the appropriate western boundary of the ocean-front property involved was the line of mean high tide of the Pacific Ocean, wherever it may be. Owners of ocean-front property, who had not previously litigated their western boundaries with the State, benefited from the 1967 decision since it establishes the rule to be thereafter applied. The result of Hughes and the 74 prior actions is that the western boundaries of oceanfront property in Pacific County vary, creating a checkerboard pattern of ownership.
On March 3, 1975, respondent Columbia Rentals, Inc. filed this suit to modify the earlier judgment against its predecessor in interest and to quiet title in it to the accreted lands between its western boundary as established in the previous action and the line established by Hughes. The other respondents were joined as parties by intervention and by the consolidation of this case with others. Both parties moved for summary judgment.
On September 16, 1976, in its summary judgment order, the trial court ruled that the judgments in the prior cases should be changed to extend respondents' property lines
so as to place plaintiff and intervenor plaintiffs in the same position with the same restrictions as those landowners in Pacific County who never brought quiet title actions against the State and were affected by the court's decision in Hughes v. State of Washington, 389 U.S. 290, 88 S.Ct. 438, 19 L.Ed.2d 530 (1967).
The State contends the trial court was in error in its ruling for four reasons: (1) the actions are barred by the doctrine of res judicata; (2) the actions are barred by the statute of limitations; (3) the State has acquired title to the accretions by adverse possession; and (4) the owners are barred by the doctrine of laches. Since we hold the actions to be barred by res judicata, we do not reach the other issues raised by the parties.
Res judicata is a doctrine grounded on the idea that the objective of all judicial proceedings is the rendition of a judgment an authoritative determination of the legal relations of the parties with respect to some particular matter. The finality of the determination serves the interests of society as well as those of the parties by bringing an end to litigation on the claim. See A. Vestal, Res Judicata/Preclusion (1969). While Vestal indicates our...
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Table of Cases
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