Eagle Cliff Fishing Co. v. McGowan

137 P. 766, 70 Or. 1, 1914 Ore. LEXIS 213
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 6, 1914
StatusPublished
Cited by29 cases

This text of 137 P. 766 (Eagle Cliff Fishing Co. v. McGowan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Eagle Cliff Fishing Co. v. McGowan, 137 P. 766, 70 Or. 1, 1914 Ore. LEXIS 213 (Or. 1914).

Opinion

Mr. Justice

Moore delivered the opinion of the court.

1. The questions to be considered are: (1) Is the determination of the federal court, in the case referred to, a bar to the prosecution of this suit? (2) If that decree does not constitute an estoppel herein, has the plaintiff, by reason of its possession of the tidelands fronting upon a part of Sand Island, the right to enjoin the placing in the Columbia River, in front of its premises the obstructions mentioned, when the defendants were undertaking to exercise at such place privileges alleged to have been obtained from the master fish warden of Oregon pursuant to prior licenses, issued to them for that purpose? These inquiries will be treated in the order stated. Although the state and the federal courts constitute a uniform judicial system, they are so essentially distinct that neither, when concurrent jurisdiction has first been secured by one, can interfere with or control the process of the other, and any attempt to do so before a final decision has been reached is void: Tenth Nat. Bank v. Sanger, 42 How. Pr. (N. Y.) 179; Ex parte Robinson, 6 McLean, 355 (Fed. Cas. No. 11,935); Ex parte Jenkins, 2 Wall. [7]*7Jr. 521 (Fed. Cas. No. 7259); Riggs v. Johnson County, 6 Wall. 166 (18 L. Ed. 768); United States ex rel. v. Council of Keokuk, 6 Wall. 514 (18 L. Ed. 933).

2, 3. It will be remembered that, after the suit referred to was commenced in the federal court of the State of Washington, Sand Island was determined by the proper tribunal to be within the limits of the State of Oregon. Invoking a maxim that equity acts in personam, it has been held by a few courts of last resort that a chancery tribunal having jurisdiction of the parties may enjoin a trespass on or an interference with land in another state; the decree operating directly on the person, and indirectly on the real property: Great Falls Mfg. Co. v. Worster, 23 N. H. 462; Alexander v. Tolleston Club, 110 Ill. 65; Schmaltz v. York Mfg. Co., 204 Pa. 1 (53 Atl. 522, 93 Am. St. Rep. 782, 59 L. R. A. 907); Kirklin v. Atlas Sav. & Loan Assn. (Tenn. Ch. App.), 60 S. W. 149. The weight of authority and apparently the better reason support the rule that a suit to enjoin a threatened trespass upon lands is local, and must be brought in the state where the property is situated: Ophir Silver Min. Co. v. Superior Court, 147 Cal. 467 (82 Pac. 70, 3 Ann. Cas. 340); Columbia National Sand Dredging Co. v. Morton, 28 App. Cas. (D. C.) 288 (8 Ann. Cas. 511, 7 L. R. A. (N. S.) 114). But, however this may be, the authority of a court to hear and determine a cause depends upon the allegations of the initiatory pleading, and not upon the facts, and an error committed in determining the jurisdiction does not usually render the judgment void; but such misconception of the question is generally regarded as voidable only: Van Fleet, Col. At., § 60. As the bill filed in the federal court of the State of Washington averred that Sand Island was within that state, and as that tribunal has general jurisdiction of the subject matter thus involved, it will be assumed, [8]*8without deciding the question, that the relief there awarded was not void.

It will be kept in mind that the decree passed by the federal court did not purport to be anything more than temporary, and was to be in force only until March 31,1912, the end of the then current fishing year. The rule is well-nigh universal that the doctrine of res judicata applies only to final determinations, and not to interlocutory decrees: 24 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law (2 ed.), 793; 2 Black, Judg. (2 ed.), § 509; 23 Cyc. 1126; 1 Van Fleet, Former Adjn., § 27. The decree invoked as an estoppel, to be available for that purpose, must be in force at the time of the alleged res judicata: Bigelow, Estop. (6 ed.), 65. This author, in a note supporting the legal principle thus asserted, observes: “Periodically securing grants of licenses, resting in the discretion of magistrates, creates no estoppel, and same objection may be made of recurring hearings, and be sustained at one time and denied at another, without regard to the state of the record in the given case.”

As opposed to this postulate, defendants’ counsel call attention to the following cases, a summary of which decisions may be found in a part of the syllabus of the first, to wit: “A right, question, or fact distinctly put in issue, and directly determined by a court of competent jurisdiction, as a ground of recovery, cannot be disputed in a subsequent suit between the same parties or their privies, and, even if the second suit is for a different cause of action, the right, question, or fact once so determined must, as between the same parties or their privies, be taken as conclusively established, so long as the judgment in the first suit

remains unmodified”: Southern Pacific R. R. v. United States, 168 U. S. 1 (42 L. Ed. 355, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 18); Baldwin v. Maryland, 179 U. S. 220 (45 L. Ed. [9]*9160, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 105); Keokuk & H. Bridge Co. v. People, 185 Ill. 276 (56 N. E. 1049); Markley v. People ex rel., 171 Ill. 260 (49 N. E. 502, 63 Am. St. Rep. 234); Peru Plow & Wheel Co. v. Ward, 6 Kan. App. 289 (51 Pac. 805); Freeman v. Barnum, 131 Cal. 386 (63 Pac. 691, 82 Am. St. Rep. 355).

An examination of these decisions will show that the two actions referred to in each case embraced parts of the same subject matter, and the question determined by the prior adjudication was identical with another part of the same subject matter included in the new action. Though the interference complained of herein is averred to have been committed at the same place as in the former suit, and the parties hereto are identical except as to alleged privy in estate of one, the right determined by the federal court was predicated upon licenses issued to the defendants pursuant to the laws of the State of Washington; while in the case at bar the licenses involved were granted to the defendants by authority of the State of Oregon. Since the decree given by the federal court was not in force when this suit was begun, and as the right involved in the prior suit was not identical with that embraced therein, the former adjudication is' not a bar to the maintenance of this suit.

Before considering the remaining question, it is deemed proper to state more in detail the facts believed to be material to a correct understanding of the cause. The water in front of sites 1, 2, and 3 of Sand Island, for some distance from the shore, is quite shallow, and, the bed of the stream at that place being free from snags, the shoal affords an excellent place for taking salmon with seines. Those operated by the plaintiff are about 1,800 feet long, 12 feet deep at the shore end, and 50 at the other. Beginning at the deep end of a seine, one of them is coiled on the stern of a [10]*10large flat-bottom boat built for the purpose of carrying such weight. From the narrow end of the seine when thus loaded, a line extending to the shore is drawn along the beach by horses.

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Bluebook (online)
137 P. 766, 70 Or. 1, 1914 Ore. LEXIS 213, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/eagle-cliff-fishing-co-v-mcgowan-or-1914.