Staaf v. Bilder
| Decision Date | 16 June 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 38303,38303 |
| Citation | 415 P.2d 650,68 Wn.2d 800 |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
| Parties | Edwin STAAF and Evelyn Staaf, his wife, Respondents, v. Peter BILDER and Viola May Bilder, his wife, Appellants. |
MacDonald, Hoague & Bayless, Alec Bayless and Raymond E. Brown, Seattle, for appellants.
Stanley N. Kasperson, Seattle, for respondents.
Peter Bildr built an ugly fence. Edwin Staaf, owner of an adjoining tract, says that the fence is not only ugly, but unnecessarily high, shuts off the view, and trespasses. He insists that it be removed from his property and torn down as a nuisance. He complains, too, that Bilder has attempted to widen an easement road beyond its true dimensions and asks that the court restore the road to its original width. The dispute involves tracts 119 and 120, Meadowdale Beach plat, Snohomish County. From a judgment and decree establishing the legal boundary between these tracts, ordering a removal of the fence, and reducing the width of the roadway easement across the northwestern part of tract 119 to its pre-1961 dimensions, the Bilders appeal.
Meadowdale Beach plat, laid out by compass and chain in 1904 in the accepted method of the day, has many inaccuracies and discrepancies, all particularly revealed in surveys from time to time through the more modern transit method of surveying. Mathematically, moreover, the 1904 plat does not close. Although some of the tracts within the plat close mathematically, others do not. Because of these inaccuracies, professional surveyors have come to accept the line of 76th Avenue West, running along the western boundary of tracts 121 and 122, as a fairly reliable base line, it being a well monumented section line running to established section corners; surveyors usually commence their surveys from the southwest corner of tract 121, called the 'government quarter corner.'
Plaintiffs Staaf acquired tract 119 from Mrs. Staaf'd father, John Carlson, in 1956, the property having been in the family since 1907. Defendants Bilder acquired tract 120 in 1960. Thus, plaintiffs' property, tract 119, and defendants' property, tract 120, have a common boundary running north and south, with plaintiffs to the east and defendants on the west of the line.
Bilders constructed a house near and erected a high fence along the entire claimed boundary line that separates their tract 120 from plaintiffs' tract 119. The fence, or solid panel plywood construction, and over 400 feet long, stood 7 to 9 1/2 feet high, depending on the ground contour at the point of measurement, and was secured to four-by-four cedar posts 10 feet high. Except for one segment, the fence shuts off the view of Puget Sound to the west from plaintiffs' property, is unnecessarily and unreasonably high and ovrtly ugly and unattractive, having no reasonable purpose or need to be either.
From substantial evidence, the court found that a buried metal pipe used as a monument or marker, discovered by plaintiffs Staaf in preparing for this case, had been placed there during and as a part of a survey prior to 1951; and that this monument marked the southern common corner of the two tracts and, therefore, constituted the southern point of the true boundary line between Staafs' tract 119 and Bilders' tract 120. This marker, as found in place by plaintiffs, was 9.2 feet west of the fence built by Bilder, and, if accepted as the true point of beginning, placed the southern starting point of the fence 9.2 feet on plaintiffs' property.
The trial court from substantial evidence fixed a point on the northern extremity of the boundary between 119 and 120 as the true north terminus and went on to describe and identify with great particularity the exact line between the two points as the true and legal boundary between the two tracts. This northern terminus the trial court established from two known corners by taking a point...
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Beres v. United States, 03-785L
...and distances if they be inconsistent with the monument calls.Matthews v. Parker, 299 P. 354, 355 (Wash. 1931); see also Staaf v. Bilder, 415 P.2d 650, 652 (Wash. 1966); Fagan v. Walters, 197 P. 635, 638 (Wash. 1921); Ray v. King Cty., 86 P.3d 183, 197 (Wash. Ct. App. 2004) ("Because the lo......
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...by Chaplin, 100 Wash.2d 853, 676 P.2d 431.7 Reitz v. Knight, 62 Wash.App. 575, 582, 814 P.2d 1212 (1991) (citing Staaf v. Bilder, 68 Wash.2d 800, 803, 415 P.2d 650 (1966)).8 In re Marriage of Hall, 103 Wash.2d 236, 246, 692 P.2d 175 (1984) (citing Smith v. Shannon, 100 Wash.2d 26, 666 P.2d ......
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...the boundaries according to the plat upon the best evidence obtainable and to retrace the boundary lines as laid down in the plat." Staaf, 68 Wn.2d at 803 (emphasis added). In Staaf, the plat in question been laid out by compass and chain in 1904, and was known to contain discrepancies. Id.......
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...is not where new and modern survey methods will place the boundaries, but where did the original plat locate them." Staaf v. Bilder , 68 Wash.2d 800, 803, 415 P.2d 650 (1966). "The main purpose of a resurvey is to rediscover the boundaries according to the plat upon the best evidence obtain......
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Chapter § 19.2 Private Nuisance
...546 (1923) (encroachment of wall). Nuisance, as well as trespass, claims frequently arise in disputes over easements. See Staaf v. Bilder, 68 Wn.2d 800, 415 P.2d 650 (1966) (involving spite fence encroaching on easement); Green v. Lupo, 32 Wn. App. 318, 324, 647 P.2d 51 (1982) (finding use ......
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...Fire Prot. Dist. No. 8 v. Spokane Cnty. Boundary Review Bd., 27 Wn. App. 491, 618 P.2d 1326 (1980): 16.6(2), 16.6(3) Staaf v. Bilder, 68 Wn.2d 800, 415 P.2d 650 (1966): 19.2(2)(a) Stafne v. Snohomish Cnty., 156 Wn. App. 667, 234 P.3d 225 (2010), aff'd, 174 Wn.2d 24, 271 P.3d 868 (2012): 15.......
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