Opinion
No. 373-41331-1.
November 16, 1970.
[1] Boundaries — Establishment — Judgment — Content. In a judgment determining a disputed boundary, the court should not only avoid relocating other boundaries to the same property when it lacks jurisdiction to determine them, but should also avoid describing such other boundaries in their former or previous locations. [See 12 Am.Jur.2d, Boundaries § 117.]
Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court for Snohomish County, No. 91943, Thomas R. Stiger, J., entered April 11, 1969.
Abbott, Curtis Coughlin and James V. Abbott, for appellants.
Anderson, Hunter Carlson and William W. Baker, for respondents.
Reversed and remanded.
Action for damages and to determine a boundary to real property. Certain defendants appeal from a corrected judgment partially in their favor.
In the beginning, this action sought damages for the loss of land due to an inaccurately placed western boundary of real property sold to Tyrrell by Hossfeld, resulting from erroneous land surveys and a lost south quarter corner. Pipkin, the owner of the property abutting the eastern boundary of Tyrrell's property, was joined in the action as a defendant, but the owner of the land west of Pipkin was not so joined. When the location of the property line was resolved by the trial court, Tyrrell's property description was to be based on the south quarter corner as established by the trial court, which moved his property line 248.36 feet west. But Pipkin was held to have acquired by adverse possession the 248.36-foot difference between his old eastern boundary line and Tyrrell's new western boundary. The court, however, in its conclusions of law and judgment, described Pipkin's property in relation to both the old and the new south quarter corners, thereby giving Pipkin the 248.36 feet gained by adverse possession, but it also placed his western boundary 248.36 feet onto land claimed by one Heyman, a landowner not a party to the action.
The trial court, on a motion by Lloyd, another landowner joined as a defendant, recognized its lack of jurisdiction to affect any property, the owners of which were not before the court. Both counsel agreed on appeal that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to determine the boundary between Pipkin's property and that of the neighboring landowner on the west who was not a party to the action. That part of the judgment was void.
[1] The court corrected its judgment (The trial court may vacate a void judgment. See Ballard Savings Loan Ass'n v. Linden, 188 Wn. 490, 492, 62 P.2d 1364 (1936).) so that Pipkin's legal description was in reference only to the old south quarter corner, thereby giving him the property claimed by adverse possession, but it also placed his western boundary where it was prior to this action. The trial court should have described only the boundaries of the land gained by adverse possession, and not Pipkin's western boundary, because Pipkin's eastern boundary was the only boundary in question before the court.
The determination of Pipkin's western boundary, if desired, must be decided by another action to which the adjoining landowners are parties.
The case is remanded to the trial court to enter conclusions of law and a judgment consistent with its findings and this opinion.
Neither party shall recover costs.
JAMES, C.J., and FARRIS, J., concur.