Home/Oregon Supreme Court/Port of Portland v. REEDER

Port of Portland v. REEDER

280 P.2d 324, 203 Or. 369, 1955 Ore. LEXIS 217
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 23, 1955
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 280 P.2d 324 (Port of Portland v. REEDER) 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
Port of Portland v. REEDER, 280 P.2d 324, 203 Or. 369, 1955 Ore. LEXIS 217 (Or. 1955).

Opinion

BRAND, J.

The plaintiff Port of Portland brings this suit to enjoin the maintenance by the defendants of houseboats and moorage structures on the river side of a harbor line established by the Port along the northeasterly bank of the Willamette River at the Swan Island Basin. Defendants contend that the Port Ordinance establishing the harbor line is invalid and that the defendants have property rights which cannot be destroyed *373 without just compensation. They allege that they are the owners of certain land, without describing it, with structures thereon “consisting of piling, dolphins, boardwalks, boat hoists, piping, etc., located on said defendants’ land, and extending out to the navigable waters of the Willamette River * * To these structures houseboats are moored.

After trial upon the merits the court issued a decree enjoining the defendants from maintaining the moorage and other structures and houseboats outside of the line established by the Port. The ownership of land by the Reeders on the east bank of the river is not disputed.

The defendant Reeder and wife are the grantees in a deed which purports to convey to them real property in the city of Portland, county of Multnomah, and lying within the boundaries of the Port of Portland, a public corporation. The real property therein described is adjacent to the Willamette River, the southerly or southeasterly boundary line being described as running to and along the harbor line as established by the United States Government Engineers. The deed bears date of 4 November 1946. The deed recites that it is “subject to the right, title and interest of the State of Oregon in and to that portion of said premises lying below the line of ordinary low water in the Willamette River and of ordinary high water of the navigable portion, if any, of Mock’s Slough.” The said land lies on the east or right bank of the river and the defendants Reeder have for some years maintained a moorage for houseboats in the river in front of said land and adjacent lands. The defendants other than Reeder and wife are the owners or occupants of houseboats or similar structures moored at the said moorage claimed by the defendants Reeder. Unless otherwise indicated, we shall refer to the Reeders as the defendants.

*374 The Willamette River is a navigable stream which flows into the Columbia River and thence to the ocean. The defendants’ land lies on the right bank and fronts upon the so-called Swan Island Basin for a claimed distance of 800 feet. It lies along the outer radius of a sharp left turn in the river and just off the downriver end of Swan Island. The bend in the river is at the entrance from the main river to the Port of Portland Drydoek and Ship Repair Basin.

In 1942 the shipyard and drydoek were built by Henry Kaiser at the foot of Swan Island. Thereafter the Port of Portland acquired the'facilities. Since then the Port has built a finger pier out from the downriver end of the island. The immense importance of the Swan Island Basin and of the improvements thereon, owned and operated by the Port, can be seen from the fact that between July 1, 1951 and June 30, 1952, 106 vessels entered the drydocks and 209 other vessels entered the Basin, making a total of 315 vessels which entered and left the Basin. Thus there were 630 passages in or out thereof in one year. These vessels varied in size from 100 feet to 523 feet in length. The distance across the narrowest part of the channel is 520 feet. The ships are maneuvered into the Basin or the dry-docks by the aid of a tow boat lashed to the stern of the ship, so that in the case of large seagoing vessels, the combined length of the ship and the stern-wheeled tow boat is from 623 to 648 feet. Other and smaller tug boats are sometimes required to aid in maneuvering the ships. These facts are convincingly illustrated by photographic exhibits introduced by the plaintiff. The distance at the narrowest point between the harbor line on Swan Island and the newly established harbor line on the right bank of the river in front of the Reeders’ property is approximately 600 feet. The rela-

*375

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
280 P.2d 324, 203 Or. 369, 1955 Ore. LEXIS 217, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/port-of-portland-v-reeder-or-1955.