Eminent Domain—Taking and Damaging: Injunction Against Taking Prior to Payment of Damages—Wandermere Corp. v. State, 79 Wn.2d 688, 488 P.2d 1088 (1971)

The Wandermere Corporation owned one mile of frontage along an open-access highway. The state planned to build a drainage facility along the highway, wholly on state-owned property. Wandermere claimed that the proposed facility, an open ditch, would lower the underground water table on its land and interfere with access rights to its property. Wandermere further alleged that the Washington constitution prohibited such state interference with property rights until there was both a judicial determination that the project would be for a public use and until damages to the property had been ascertained and paid in the manner provided by law. The trial court denied Wandermere\u27s request for an injunction to halt the project until the state complied with these constitutional requirements. The state supreme court reversed, holding that Wandermere was entitled to an injunction prohibiting further construction of the drainage facility until such time as petitioner\u27s damages had been ascertained and paid and the character of the interference with the underground water table determined. Wandermere Corp. v. State, 79 Wn.2d 688, 488 P.2d 1088 (1971)