Shephard v. Coeur D'Alene Lumber Co.

• Decision Date: 15 April 1909
• Citation: 101 P. 591,16 Idaho 293
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court
• Parties: HULDA A. SHEPHARD, Respondent, v. COEUR D'ALENE LUMBER COMPANY, Appellant

101 P. 591

16 Idaho 293

HULDA A. SHEPHARD, Respondent, v. COEUR D'ALENE LUMBER COMPANY, Appellant

Supreme Court of Idaho

April 15, 1909

PRIVY TO JUDGMENT-PURCHASE SUBSEQUENT TO COMMENCEMENT OF ACTION-RIPARIAN RIGHTS-OBSTRUCTION TO THE RIGHT OF INGRESS AND EGRESS.

1. Every person is privy to a judgment or decree who claims an interest in an estate, which interest has been acquired by conveyance from a party to such judgment or decree subsequent to the commencement of the action in which the judgment or decree was entered.

2. The appellant herein, Coeur d'Alene Lumber Company, a Washington corporation, is the successor in interest and right to Coeur d'Alene Lumber Company, Ltd., an Idaho corporation, and is bound by the judgment and decree entered in the case of Shephard v. Coeur d'Alene Lumber Company Ltd., 11 Idaho 529, 83 P. 601.

3. Lake Coeur d'Alene is a public highway over which the public have a right to travel and to carry on commerce, and every person is entitled to exercise and enjoy that right in common with every other person, but no one has a right to convert that easement into a private use for a storehouse or warehouse or boom for holding or retaining its property or articles of trade and commerce. To do so would amount to an obstruction to the right of navigation and to the right to carry on commerce over such navigable waters.

4. Where a lumber company constructs and maintains a log boom along the waterfront of the lands of a riparian owner preventing ingress and egress to and from the lands of such owner, injunction will lie to restrain the party maintaining the same from a continuance thereof.

5. The right of ingress and egress to and from the lands of a riparian owner is a property right, and must be respected and for the protection of which the courts will afford a remedy.

(Syllabus by the court.)

APPEAL from the District Court of the First Judicial District, for the County of Kootenai. Hon. William W. Woods, Judge.

Action by plaintiff to enjoin and restrain defendant from maintaining a boom in Coeur d'Alene Lake, along the shore line and immediately in front of her property. Judgment for plaintiff and defendant appealed. Affirmed.

Judgment of the trial court affirmed. Costs awarded in favor of respondent.

R. E. McFarland, A. A. Crane, and H. M. Stephens, for Appellant.

Appellant would have a right to the use of the waters in front of the land of respondent for useful or beneficial purposes, so long as the use by obstruction merely impairs or renders more difficult the navigation, without destroying it. (Small v. Harrington, 10 Idaho 499, 79 P. 461; Powell v. Springston Lumber Co., 12 Idaho 723, 88 P. 97.)

Edwin McBee, and Gray & Knight, for Respondent.

The judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction, so long as the same is unreversed, is conclusive of all questions involved in the issues, presented by the pleadings and passed upon by the judgment of such court as to parties and privies. (Elliott v. Porter, 6 Idaho 684, 59 P. 360; Calumet Paper Co. v. Stotts, 96 Ia. 147, 59 Am. St. 362, 64 N.W. 782; Partridge v. Sheppard, 71 Cal. 470, 12 P. 480.)

Judgments are binding upon privies as well as upon parties; but only those are privies, within the meaning of the rule, who acquire their interest in the subject matter of the suit after its commencement. (Carroll v. Goldschmidt, 83 F. 508, 27 C. C. A. 566.)

The appellant is not seeking to exercise a riparian right in connection with lands which it owns, but is attempting to monopolize the shore line of plaintiff's land for its own individual purposes and not a reasonable use of the waters for the purposes of navigation. The right of the plaintiff to enjoy the use of the waters in front of her land is a substantial right and the injunction was properly granted. (Johnson v. Johnson, 14 Idaho 561, 95 P. 499.)

AILSHIE, J. Sullivan, C. J., and Stewart, J., concur.

OPINION

AILSHIE, J.

This action was commenced by the respondent, Hulda A. Shephard, to procure an injunction restraining the defendant from trespassing on plaintiff's land and dumping sawdust and debris thereon and from booming and storing logs along and upon the shore line in front of her land abutting on Lake Coeur d'Alene. The district court entered a decree in favor of the plaintiff, and defendant, the Coeur d'Alene Lumber Company, a Washington corporation, has appealed.

The complaint is in the usual form, and contains all the material allegations essential in such cases, and the demurrer was therefore properly overruled, as was also the objection to the introduction of any evidence in support of the allegations of the complaint. The defendant denied the plaintiff's ownership of the property and alleged ownership in itself. The evidence produced on the part of both plaintiff and defendant in an endeavor to establish the chain of title is extremely complicated and confusing. Both parties claim title to the property, and each endeavors to trace title from a patent from the United States government to Tony A. Tubbs. As we view this question of title, however it is wholly unnecessary to recite it here or enter into any discussion or consideration of it in detail. In our view of the matter the whole question of respondent's title and right of possession as against this appellant is settled and determined by the case of Shephard v. Coeur d'Alene Lumber Co., 11 Idaho 529, 83 P. 601. This appellant is the grantee and successor in interest through mesne conveyances of the Coeur d'Alene Lumber Company, Ltd., an Idaho corporation. The case of Shephard v. Coeur d'Alene...