Legoe v. Chicago Fishing Co.

Citations

• 24 Wash. 175
• 64 P. 141
• 1901 Wash. LEXIS 512

Syllabus

<p>FISHERIES-FISHING SITE-ABANDONMENT-RIGHT OF RE-LOCATION.</p> <p>Laws 1897, p. 218, § 7, which provides that, if the holder of a fishing license, who has indicated a location for his trap or pound net by driving piles and posting his license number, “fails to construct his appliance during the fishing season covered by his license, such location shall be deemed abandoned,” does not preclude one who has abandoned a fishing site from re-locating thereon for the next fishing season, when no other person has acquired a prior claim thereto between the time of his abandonment and his re-location.</p> <p>SAME-PRIORITIES.</p> <p>Under Laws 1897, p. 218, § 7, which provides “that any person or corporation, after having obtained a license as provided for in this act, shall indicate locations for traps or pound nets made under such license, by driving at least three substantial piles thereon, which must extend at least ten feet above the surface of the water at high tide, one of said piles to be driven at each end of the location claimed, and upon said terminal piles there must be posted the license number,” the plaintiff, who on the afternoon of March 16th placed temporary poles on the beach while the tide was out and posted his license number thereon, and three days later drove substantial piles farther out, did not thereby acquire a superior right over defendant, who, on the evening of March 16th, posted its license number on its own piles already on the site, when the defendant had on the morning of that day been engaged at the site in making tests of the course of the tides by means of lines and floats, preparatory to fixing a pound net at that place, — the acts of the defendant thus being as effective as those of the plaintiff to indicate an intention to make a fishing location on the site, and the defendant being actually first in time to indicate its intention and also to literally comply with the statute.</p> <p>SAME —■ INDICATING LOCATION STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS.</p