Robert Brachtenbach - Famous Opinions

Famous Opinions

Robert Brachtenbach was the majority opinion, in the famous WSPPS case. He ruled that the power authority did not have the right to issue stock, so that all the people who invested in the power company were not owed any money by the system.

Brachtenbach, while sitting as a Washington State Supreme Court Justice, wrote the opinion for Brown v. Voss, 105 Wash.2d 366, 715 P.2d 514 (1986). The issue in Voss was: to what extent can the owner of a private road easement traverse the servient estate to not only reach the dominant estate, but a parcel (subsequently acquired by the dominant estate owner) adjacent to the dominant estate when such usage does not increase the burden on the servient estate? While Brachtenbach stated the general rule that an easement appurtenant to one parcel of land may not be extended by the owner of the dominant estate to an additional non-dominant parcel owned by the owner of the dominant estate regardless of whether the additional parcel is adjacent to the dominant estate, and further declared that if an easement appurtenant serves a particular parcel of land, any extension of the easement is a misuse of the easement—Brachtenbach still ultimately allowed the owner of the dominant estate to continue using the easement to access the additional, non-dominant estate because a grant of injunctive relief would be inappropriate in light of the circumstances. In short, Brachtenbach essentially found in favor of the Plaintiff by not granting the defendant injunctive relief (i.e. preventing the owner of the dominant estate to continue to use the easement to access the adjacent non-dominant estate) although the plaintiff unlawfully extended the easement. Brachtenbach rationalized that a grant of injunctive relief under the circumstances would be inappropriate and against the principles of equity because (while no additional harm to the servient estate resulted from the extension of the easement) if injunctive relief was in fact given to the defendant, it would only serve to harm the plaintiff while not providing any benefit or protection to the defendant.