Gifford v. Horton

Citations

• 54 Wash. 595
• 103 P. 988
• 1909 Wash. LEXIS 1040

Syllabus

<p>Navigable Waters — Littoral Rights — Dedication—Shore Lands. Tbe title to shore lands being in the United States, and in the state after the adoption of the constitution, an upland owner, by dedicating a plat covering shore lands on a navigable lake, acquires no title thereto, and none can pass from him by deed or execution sale.</p> <p>Dedication — Boundaries—Streets Bordering on Lake — Fee— Rights of Purchasers. Where a street in a plat is dedicated along a lake shore to the high water mark, the purchaser of lots abutting on the street acquires the fee to the entire street, subject to the public easement.</p> <p>Public Lands — Shore Lands — Preference Right to Purchase— Lots Abutting on Lake Front Street. The purchaser of lots abutting on a street that reaches to high water mark on a lake, has the preference right to purchase the abutting shore lands, by virtue of his ownership of the fee of the entire street. •</p> <p>Same — Statute—Construction. Laws 1897, p. 250, § 45, giving upland owners the preference right to purchase shore lands is a mere gratuity, and is not intended as in lieu of riparian rights.</p> <p>Dedication — Reservations — Construction — Fee of Street — Rights of Purchaser — Navigable Waters. The fact that the plat-tors in dedicating a street along the shore' line of a lake, the center line of which was above high water mark, excepted and reserved to their own use, all water, riparian, and littoral rights, does not show an intent to reserve the fee to a thread of the street upon sale of lots abutting thereon, thereby saving a preference right to purchase the shore lands; nor does the fact that they believed they owned the lands below high water show an intent to reserve the fee to a thread of the street beyond its center line.</p>