The case Deruwe v. Morrison involved a dispute between adjoining landowners over whether water flowing from southern creeks into a lake bed and then through a main ditch on the respondents' property constituted a natural watercourse, and whether a dam built to block that flow could lawfully interfere with it. The majority held that the water flow did not qualify as a watercourse, permitting the dam to stand. Its reasoning relied on the Restatement of Torts definition requiring a stream of natural origin in a reasonably definite channel with constant or recurrent flow, along with Washington precedents distinguishing surface water from protected watercourses, and found that the intermittent flow and ditch conditions failed to meet those criteria. The dissent argued the opposite, citing historical affidavits, prior cases such as Rigney v. Tacoma Light & Water Co. and Hastie v. Jenkins, and the Restatement's treatment of marshes and lakes as parts of watercourses.
This case involved a divorced man's attempt to modify the alimony provisions of a 1935 divorce decree. After his first petition for modification was denied following a hearing with evidence, he filed a second similar petition, which the trial court granted. The Washington Supreme Court reversed, holding that the issues in the second petition were the same as those in the first, and that alimony modifications cannot be based on facts existing at the time of the original decree or allow relitigation of previously decided matters without new circumstances.
The case involved a dispute over a 1939 installment contract for the sale of timber lands, under which Cascade Timber Co. paid the full $210,000 purchase price and then sued Northern Pacific Railway Co. for specific performance to obtain a deed free of restrictions beyond mineral reservations. The contract contained paragraph 10, requiring Cascade to ship its timber products via Northern Pacific's lines when rates were equal and to offer suitable logs to Northwest Door Company at market price. The trial court denied the request for specific performance, and the Washington Supreme Court affirmed, reasoning that specific performance is an equitable remedy available only to plaintiffs who come with clean hands and do equity, and Cascade had willfully failed to perform material covenants that were a key inducement for the sale.
The case involved a dispute between Jack Hynes and Frances Hynes (later Carlson) over real property and a tavern business they acquired and operated while living together in Washington after meeting in 1937. Hynes sued claiming interests in the property and assets based on their relationship and joint efforts, but the trial court found they had fully settled all financial differences. The court affirmed the judgment for the defendant, holding that the parties reached an accord and satisfaction when Hynes accepted and cashed a check for $380.31 that she tendered in full settlement of his claimed share of the funds and property. The reasoning relied on the plaintiff's own testimony admitting the settlement agreement, along with precedents establishing that acceptance of a check offered in full payment of a disputed claim bars further recovery.
This case involved a life insurance beneficiary suing the insurer after it denied a claim on a policy issued without a medical exam, based on the insured's application answers about his health history. The insured, a healthy farm laborer, had briefly consulted a doctor months earlier for a cold and chest pain, where high blood pressure was noted but not fully diagnosed or treated, and he did not disclose it. The trial court submitted the issues of misrepresentation and intent to deceive to the jury, which found for the beneficiary, and the Washington Supreme Court affirmed, holding that under state law materiality and intent were factual questions for the jury rather than matters of law, given the insured's otherwise robust health, limited medical contact, and the circumstances of the application process.
The case involved a resident taxpayer's petition to compel the mayor and commissioners of Vancouver, Washington, to enact an ordinance or submit to a public vote a measure initiating the process for the city to adopt a home-rule charter and qualify as a first-class city under state law. The city had adopted the commission form of government in 1942, and a statute required six years of operation before abandoning that form, but the petition was filed in 1946 before that period expired. The superior court issued a writ of mandamus ordering action on the petition, and the Washington Supreme Court affirmed, ruling that Article XI, section 10 of the state constitution directly grants cities with 20,000 or more inhabitants the right to frame a charter, which cannot be restricted by the statutory waiting period since the statute provides only one non-exclusive method of changing government form.