Brown v. City of Bremerton

Citations

• 69 Wash. 474
• 125 P. 785
• 1912 Wash. LEXIS 934

Syllabus

<p>Deeds — Description — Boundaries — Reservations — Intent —Construction by Parties. A deed of land by metes and bounds including calls “to the harbor limit” and “parallel to said harbor line,” which reserves a strip of land thirty feet wide off the northeast corner for a distance of 148.3 feet for the purpose of a public road, must be taken to convey to the inner shore or high water line, and not to the meander line, which was about 100 feet distant where the water was from four to eight feet deep at high water, especially where the strip at high water mark had been used as a roadway for several years prior to the execution of the deed, and was thereafter used by the public continuously as a road for more than ten years prior to the commencement of the action.</p> <p>Deeds—Construction—Intent—Extrinsic Evidence. The fact that a common grantor in his last deed reserved a strip of land thirty feet wide along the meander line for a public road, does not show that a like reservation in a deed of a contiguous tract made six years previously of thirty feet “along the shore line” was intended to mean along the meander line.</p> <p>Quietinq Title—Title of Plaintiff. In a suit to quiet title, the plaintiff must prevail, if at all, on the strength of her own title.</p>