Graves v. Dunlap

Citations

• 87 Wash. 648
• 152 P. 532
• 1915 Wash. LEXIS 962

Syllabus

<p>Animals—Game—Wild Animals—Property Rights ■— Constitutional Law—Due Process. There is a property right in animals ferae naturae, such as deer, game birds, and domesticated swan, of which the owner cannot be deprived by an act of the legislature without due compensation, as guaranteed by the state constitution, art. 1, § 3, and the fourteenth amendment of the Federal constitution, where they have been reclaimed from their wild state and are kept confined in inclosures and cared for as domestic animals or fowls.</p> <p>Game—Statutes—Retroactive Operation—Constitutional Law —Due Process. 3 Rem. & Bal. Code, § 5395-21, providing that no person shall have any property right in any of the wild animals protected by the game code of 1913, but that they shall always remain the property of the state, and § 5395-33, providing that no person shall “have in possession or under control” any of such wild animals, should not be given a retroactive effect, when to do so would violate the due process clauses of the state and Federal constitutions protecting the qualified right of property in animals ferae naturae that had been reclaimed from their wild state before the passage of the act.</p> <p>Game—Protection'—Statutes—“Possess.” Under the game laws of the state as they existed from 1901 to 1911, inclusive, regulating the hunting of game, taking the word “possess” in connection with its context, wherein it is prohibited to “hunt, pursue, take, kill, injure, destroy or possess” any of the protected animals during the closed season prescribed in the act, it must have been the intention of the legislature to prohibit the taking of “possession” only during the closed season; and there is nothing in any of the acts sufficiently broad to cover the possession of deer and game fowls which were reclaimed from their wild state and kept in an inclosure.</p> <p>Animals—Game—Wild Animals—Property Rights — Right to Kill. A person having a property right in reclaimed wild animals may kill one