Anderson Steamboat Co. v. County of King

Citations

• 84 Wash. 375
• 146 P. 855
• 1915 Wash. LEXIS 800

Syllabus

<p>Ferbies — Right to Use- — Grant. Rem. & Bal. Code, § 5013, providing that a county may “operate and maintain ... a ferry . . . together with approaches and landings . . . appertaining thereto,” for tolls, is an exclusive grant to use shore lands, belonging to the state, for the purpose of a wharf and approaches to the ferry connecting with a public highway laid out along the shore.</p> <p>Wharves — Public Wharves — Use eor Ferry. A county’s use of a wharf and approaches for a ferry, under a grant from the state, in its proprietary capacity as licensee of the state, does not make the wharf and approaches a public dock.</p> <p>Ferries — Approaches—Public Highways — Presumption. The presumption that a street converted into a ferry approach by a wharf, is a public highway, may be rebutted, and is overcome where the wharf was constructed by the public for a ferry approach incidental to a franchise right to maintain the ferry.</p> <p>Highways — Extent—Water Bounbaries. Where a highway is laid out along a shore, following the shore line, there is no constructive extension of the street into the water, although it touches the water at intervals.</p> <p>Wharves — Public Wharves — Presumption. Where a wharf is used in a proprietary capacity as an approach to a county ferry, and the wharf is constructed on state lands to connect with a public highway running along the shore, opposite to an intersecting state highway terminating in but not extending beyond the shore road, there is no presumption of a common right of user, and the wharf is not a public wharf.</p> <p>Same — Public Characteb — Use oe Public Funds. The public character of such a wharf and ferry approach cannot be determined by reference to the fact that the county has paid for it and its upkeep from the road and bridge fund; since an unlawful diversion of county funds does not affect the character of the county’s ownership and use of the wharf and ferry approach.</p>