John R. Carlson, John R. Carlson and Eleanor C. Carlson, His Wife v. The Tulalip Tribes of Washington, a Federal Corporation

John and Eleanor Carlson appeal the district court’s dismissal of their suit to quiet title to certain waterfront lands.

The Tulalip Indian Reservation was created by the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott. In 1888, the United States conveyed certain lots (herein called the “subject tract”) within the Reservation to Mowich Sam, a Tulalip Indian. In 1961, the Carlsons, heirs of Mowich Sam, brought a partition suit regarding the subject tract in Washington State Courts. By virtue of the resulting decree, the Carlsons obtained fee simple title to the subject tract. The tract map includes a meander line which, at the time of the survey, more or less followed an estuarial shoreline.

In 1966, the Carlsons entered into a land sale contract to convey the subject tract to plaintiff Shorewood Park.

In 1969, the Tulalip Tribal Corporation made a claim of ownership to tidelands within the Reservation. Portions of these tidelands are contiguous with the subject tract, extending to the level of ordinary high water. Because of possible conflict between the record boundary of the subject tract and the actual ordinary high-water line, the Carlsons and Shorewood Park alleged that the tribal…