Meeker v. City of Puyallup

• Decision Date: 17 February 1893
• Citation: 5 Wash. 759,32 P. 727
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: MEEKER ET UX. v. CITY OF PUYALLUP.

32 P. 727

5 Wash. 759

MEEKER ET UX. v. CITY OF PUYALLUP.

Supreme Court of Washington

February 17, 1893

Appeal from superior court, Pierce county; Frank Allyn, Judge.

Action by Ezra M. Meeker and wife against the city of Puyallup to declare plaintiffs the owners of certain lands which they had dedicated to the public. There was judgment for defendant and plaintiffs appeal. Affirmed.

Pritchard Stevens, Grosscup & Seymour, for appellants.

W. W Gaskill, City Atty., and Thos. Carroll, for respondent.

HOYT J.

In 1889 appellants executed and delivered to the town of Puyallup a deed conveying the land in question to said town for the purpose of a public park. Such deed was accepted by the town, and placed on record in the auditor's office, and an ordinance was duly passed agreeing to all of the conditions set out in said deed. Thereafter said town, by its properly constituted authorities, took possession of the land, and exercised full control of the same as a public park. The grantors fully recognized the right of said town so to do, and in many ways encouraged and acquiesced in the use and control of said land as such public park. Subsequent to the making of this deed the attempted incorporation of said town was declared invalid by this court. Some time thereafter the city of Puyallup was duly incorporated under the laws of the state of Washington with substantially the same boundaries as those included in the attempted incorporation of the town of Puyallup. After the incorporation of the said city of Puyallup the authorities thereof exercised acts of ownership over the land in question as a park, in the same manner as had the acting authorities of the former attempted incorporation. The said city of Puyallup also duly passed an ordinance accepting all the conditions in the deed to the said town of Puyallup. This ordinance was not passed until after the action was commenced, and could not aid the title of respondent under the deed in question; but as it was a fact in the case at the time the decree was rendered it could properly be taken into account in determining the relief to be granted. The above-stated facts appear clearly from the record, and there is some testimony tending to show acts on the part of the grantors in said deed since the incorporation of said city affirmatively recognizing the use of the land in question as a public park. But upon this point the proof is not satisfactory. There is, however, proof that for some months after the new incorporation the appellants stood by, and, with knowledge that the property was being used and controlled by the city as a park, said nothing in opposition to its being so used and controlled.

Appellants sought by this action to obtain a decree that the city of Puyallup has no rights to the land in question, and that said appellants are the owners thereof, discharged of and from any claim of the public growing out of the facts above set forth. That the acts of the appellants outside of the making of said deed were insufficient to constitute a dedication of the land is clear, and, if such deed can have no force in aiding the contention of the respondent that the same has been dedicated to public use, the claim of appellants must be sustained. The important question, then, is as to the construction of this deed. Appellants claim that it is absolutely void...