Honsinger v. State

OPINION

CONNOR, Justice.

This case started as a quiet title action brought against the state in 1973. Plaintiffs are the owners of homestead lands in the Mendenhall Wetlands area northwest of Juneau. Between the time of the original federal homestead patent surveys and 1973, approximately 95 acres of land had emerged contiguous to the seaward side of plaintiffs’ property.

Plaintiffs claimed that the property in dispute was created by accretion and, therefore, should inure to their benefit as littoral, i.e. shoreline, owners. The state responded that all or a portion of the land in question was…