Home/Washington Supreme Court/Stockwell v. Gibbons

Stockwell v. Gibbons

363 P.2d 111, 58 Wash. 2d 391, 1961 Wash. LEXIS 316
CourtWashington Supreme Court
DecidedJune 29, 1961
Docket34436
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 363 P.2d 111 (Stockwell v. Gibbons) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Washington Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stockwell v. Gibbons, 363 P.2d 111, 58 Wash. 2d 391, 1961 Wash. LEXIS 316 (Wash. 1961).

Opinion

Finley, C. J.

In this action the plaintiffs Kacks and Stockwells and defendants Gibbons, by complaint and cross- *392 complaint, respectively, seek to quiet title to certain relatively small portions of Government Lot 1, Section 32, Township 35, North, Range 2, East W. M.

A map showing Government Lot 1 and the adjacent tidelands is reproduced hereinafter.

Government Lot 1, commonly known as Weaver ling’s Spit, is a peninsula of Fidalgo Island, located in the vicinity of Anacortes, Washington. A quick reference to the map shows that Lot 1 is bounded on the west by the section line common to sections 31 and 32. On the north, east and south, it is bounded by State Tideland Tract 18 and the waters of Fidalgo Bay, an arm of Puget Sound. Generally speaking, the ownership interests of the Kacks and Stockwells involve the western portion of Lot 1, and the interests of the Gibbons the eastern portion.

The controversy between the parties in this case is twofold, in that it involves two distinct and different questions. The first involves title to a strip of land approximately fifty-five feet wide (see area marked ABCD on map); the second involves title to property known as the meander strip (see irregular, noncontiguous, dark-shaded portions of property along the shore of Lot 1). The trial court found that the disputed fifty-five-foot strip was owned by the Gibbons; that the meander strip fronting on the eastern end of Lot 1 was owned by the Gibbons by reason of adverse possession; that the remainder of the meander strip was owned by the Kacks and the Stockwells; and that the Gibbons possessed littoral and riparian rights in the entire meander strip. All parties appeal.

The common grantor of all parties litigant acquired title to Lot 1 from a government land patent issued in 1862, some twenty-seven years prior to the admission of the state of Washington to the Union. Under Article 17, § 2, of the Washington State Constitution, such a land patent conveys to the patentee title to all of the property above the line of ordinary high tide or the government meander line, whichever is farther seaward. Van Siclen v. Muir (1907), 46 Wash. 38, 89 Pac. 188; Kneeland v. Korter (1905),

*393

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
363 P.2d 111, 58 Wash. 2d 391, 1961 Wash. LEXIS 316, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stockwell-v-gibbons-wash-1961.