Western Pac. Ry. Co. v. Southern Pac. Co.

151 F. 376, 80 C.C.A. 606, 1907 U.S. App. LEXIS 4161
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 4, 1907
DocketNo. 1,326
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 151 F. 376 (Western Pac. Ry. Co. v. Southern Pac. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Western Pac. Ry. Co. v. Southern Pac. Co., 151 F. 376, 80 C.C.A. 606, 1907 U.S. App. LEXIS 4161 (9th Cir. 1907).

Opinion

GILBERT, Circuit Judge,

after stating the case as above, delivered the opinion of the court.

As the appellee’s title is deraigned from the grant of lands to'the town of Oakland by the act of May 4, 1852 (St. 1852, p. 180, c. 107), it becomes necessary to ascertain the extent and boundaries of that grant. It was a grant of lands, not coterminous with, but within the limits of, the town of Oakland. Both the limits of the town and the limits of the grant have been determined by the Supreme Court of California in a case in which it became necessary to construe the grant and the boundaries of both the town and the grant. City of Oakland v. Oakland Water Front Co., 118 Cal. 160, 50 Pac. 277. The construction placed by that court upon the language of the act of May 4, 1852, and its determination of the questions qf local law involved in that suit, must, of course, be adopted by a federal court in dealing with questions arising under them. This rule is so well established that the citation of authority is unnecessary. Its binding force and its applicability to the present case are admitted by both parties to the controversy. The court in that case held that the southerly line of the San Antonio creek, intended by the act as the southern boundary of the town, was the line of low tide, and not the high-tide line. Said Chief Justice Beatty:

“I assume, then, as a proposition thoroughly established, that the eastern and southerly boundary of the town of Oakland extended along the line of low tide on the estuary crossing the inlet of the eastern basin at its mouth and continuing to the mouth of the estuary in the bay.”

Having determined the southerly boundary of the town, the court approached the question of the westerly boundary, and entered into a discussion of the words “ship channel” as used in the description there[383]*383of. The question was considered at length in the opinion of the chief justice. The scope of the discussion was premised with the following remarks:

“We must hold that ‘ship channel’ was a line capable of location on the ground, and must determine where it ran. That it was a line different from the line of high tide is rendered certain by the fact that the land granted is described as lying between the line of high tide and ship channel, but beyond this it cannot be said that anything is certain.”

The chief justice considered the contention of both the parties to the cause then under consideration, in which contention both agreed, which was that the “ship channel” referred to in the description of the town limits was the line of three fathoms depth in the bay. This the opinion denominated an assumption that had no tangible basis, and said it was to be rejected, both because it was not a definite line, and because the call for the western boundary is “thence northerly and easterly by the line of ship channel to a point where the same bisects the said northeastern boundary line”; whereas, the three-fathom line does not run northerly and easterly, but runs throughout its whole extent in a uniformly northwesterly direction. After alluding to the fact that there never had been any law establishing a water front or bulkhead line in front of the city of Oakland, the court deduced this conclusion:

“Ship’s channel comprises the waters left free to naviagtion; and, when we are required to locate its boundaries with precision, and no artificial boundary has been established by competent authority, we are driven to seek a definite natural boundary, if any such may he found, and here we do find such a boundary at the line of low tide. This is a definite line, and the only definite line beyond the line of high tide, and my conclusion is that the line of low tide as it existed on the 4tli of May. 1852, was tlie western boundary of the town of Oakland intended by the original act of incorporation.”

The result of the whole discussion was summed up in the opinion as follows:

“The boundary of the town of Oakland, as defined by the act of May 4, 1852, commencing at the Intersection of the northeast line with tlie line of low tide on the eastern side of the northern branch of the estuary, follows the line of low tide on said branch to the mouth of the eastern basin, crosses said mouth, and continues along the line of low tide on the southern side of the estuary to its mouth in the bay; and thence follows the line of low tide northerly and easterly until it intersects the northeastern boundary line, as to the location of which there seems to be no dispute.”

After defining the boundaries of the town, the opinion of the chief justice proceeds to define the limits of the grant of land to the town, which grant is expressed in the following words:

“AVith a view to facilitate the construction of wharves and other Improvements, the lands lying within the limits aforesaid between high tide and ship channel are hereby granted and released to the said town, provided that said land shall be retained by said town as common property, or disposed of for the purposes aforesaid.”

With reference to this grant, the opinion contains the following carefully considered language:

[384]*384“The. grant to Oakland was, of the lands lying between high-water mark and ship channel within' these boundaries; arid therefore ihcludéd nothing west of the line of low tide on the bay :front, and nothing beyond the line of low tide on the north and west shore of the estuary. I say nothing was included beyond this line .along the estuary, because the estuary was itself a part of the ship channel, and there was rio part of the town'between-it and high tide on the south and east side. My reason for saying that the estuary'was a part of ship channel is that it was in fact navigable, and that fact had been recognized and declared by an act passed only one day before the passage of the act incorporating Oakland. St. 1852, p. 182, c. 108. By this act the ‘stream called Sail Antonio creek’ was declared navigable from its mouth to the old embarcadero of San Antonio, and all' obstructions to its navigation were forbidden. It is true this act does not seem to have included the northern branch of the estuary; but, in the view I take of the matter, legislative recognition of the fact of navigability was not necessary to constitute a ship channel. The fact was itself sufficient, and the coast survey map shows that the northern branch was navigable for every class of vessels that could go to San Antonio. Each branch had a depth of, two feet at low tide—the same as the depth on the bar at the mouth of the estuary, which meant a depth at full high, tide of from seven to eight feet every 24 hours, and this was sufficient to accommodate a very important traffic.”

The attention of the court was directed to the doctrine of the Chicago Water Front Case (Illinois Central Railroad v. Illinois; 146 U. S. 387, 13 Sup. Ct. 110, 36 L. Ed. 1018), with reference to the power of the state to authorize the town to convey submerged lands to private owners, and the opinion proceeds as follows:

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Bluebook (online)
151 F. 376, 80 C.C.A. 606, 1907 U.S. App. LEXIS 4161, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/western-pac-ry-co-v-southern-pac-co-ca9-1907.