Determination of Time of Taking of Avigation Easement

Plaintiffs, owners of property lying under the flight path of planes using the airport owned and operated by defendant, brought inverse condemnation actions alleging defendant had acquired an avigation easement. Having concluded that the date of the taking was, as a matter of law, when the first regularly scheduled use of the runways in question began, the trial court dismissed the complaints because plaintiffs acquired their properties after that date. On appeal, a unanimous court reversed and remanded. Held: The taking of an avigation easement occurs, not when the first regularly scheduled commercial use of an airport commences, but when low flights become continuing and frequent over the affected servient lands. Anderson v. Port of Seattle, 66 Wash. Dec. 2d 443, 403 P.2d 368 (1965)