Wilkening v. State

The trial court granted an involuntary nonsuit at the close of plaintiff’s case. Plaintiff appeals from a judgment dismissing his action with prejudice.

Plaintiff originally owned a tract of land, the southeasterly portion of which was a natural embankment sloping down to and including the adjacent tide lands in the Des-Chutes waterway in the city of Olympia. A portion of plaintiff’s property below the embankment was subject to a thirty-foot railroad right of way traversed by a wooden trestle supporting a single railroad track. Plaintiff’s home is at the top of the embankment.

In 1947, the…