Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/179/141
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 08:15:52+00:00

Document:
GILMORE G. SCRANTON, , v. EBEN S. WHEELER.
GILMORE G. SCRANTON, Piff. in Err., v. EBEN S. WHEELER.
This writ of error brings up for review a final judgment of the supreme court of Michigan holding that the United States is not required to compensate an owner of land fronting on a public navigable river when his right of access from the shore to the navigable part of such river is permanently obstructed by a pier erected in the river under the authority of Congress for the purpose only of improving navigation.
Omitting any reference to immaterial matters, the case as made by the pleadings and evidence is as follows: By an act of Congress approved September 26th, 1850, chap. 71, providing for the examination and settlement of claims for land at the Sault Ste. Marie in Michigan, the local register and receiver of the land office were authorized to report upon claims to lots at that place under instructions to be given by the Commissioner of the General Land Office. 9 Stat. at L. 469.
In conformity with proceedings under that act the heirs of Franklin Newcomb and Samuel Peck were confirmed in their claim jointly to premises known as Private Land Claim No. 3, and a patent was issued to them by the United States on the 6th day of October, 1874. The premises were at the west or upper end of the St. Mary's Falls ship canal, and one of the boundaries, as shown by the field notes, was 'along the right bank of the Ste. Marie river.' By mesne conveyances from the heirs of Franklin Newcomb the plaintiff, Scranton, became the owner of an undivided half of the land in question.
By an act approved August 26th, 1852, chap. 92, Congress granted to the state of Michigan the right to locate a canal through the public lands in that state known as the military reservation, at the falls of St. Mary's river, and 400 feet of land in width extending along the line of the canal was granted for the construction and convenience of the canal and the appurtenances thereto, the use being vested in the state for such purposes and no other. The act provided that the canal should be located on the line of the survey, made for that purpose, or on such other route between the waters above and below the falls as might be selected with the approval of the Secretary of War. In aid of the construction and completion of the canal Congress also granted to the state 750,000 acres of public lands, and it was provided that the canal should be, and remain, a public highway for the use of the United States, free from toll or other charge upon the vessels of the government engaged in the public service, or upon vessels employed in the transportation of property or troops of the United States. 10 Stat. at L. 35.
The construction of the canal was begun by Michigan in 1853 and completed in 1855. It was owned and operated by the state until the year 1881, when it was transferred to the United States in conformity with the river and harbor act of June 14th, 1880, chap. 211, by which $250,000 was appropriated for improving and operating the river and the canal, and by which also the Secretary of War was authorized to accept on behalf of the United States from the state of Michigan the St. Mary's canal and the public works thereon,the transfer to be so made as to leave the United States free from all debts, claims, or liability of any character whatsoever, and the canal after the transfer to be free for public use. By the same act the Secretary of War was authorized, such transfer being made, to draw from time to time his warrant on the Treasury to pay the actual expenses of operating and keeping the canal in repair. 21 Stat. at L. 180, 189.
Prior to the transfer Congress had made large appropriations for the repair, preservation, improvement, and completion of the canal. 16 Stat. at L. 224, chap. 240; 16 Stat. at L. 402, chap. 34; 18 Stat. at L. 238, chap. 457; 18 Stat. at L. 456, chap. 134; 19 Stat. at L. 136, chap. 267; 20 Stat. at L. 156, chap. 264; 20 Stat. at L. 369, chap. 181; 21 Stat. at L. 189, chap. 211.
As originally constructed, a pier extended from the west end of the canal into the water, curving to the north. This pier was opposite to a part of Private Land Claim No. 3, but left at that time a riparian frontage for those premises of from 300 to 400 feet.
In 1877 the United States commenced and in 1881 completed the construction in the water of what is known as the new south pier, which extended across the entire front of Private Land Claim No. 3, and was within the riparian ownership of the plaintiff as projected from the land towards the middle thread of the stream. The effect of the construction of this new pier was to exclude the plaintiff altogether from access from his land within the lateral lines of his riparian ownership, projected as aforesaid, to the navigable water or to the channel of the river that was navigable. On both sides of the space included within such projected lines of the plaintiff's riparian ownership, and between the new pier and the bank of the river, the water was only 5 feet in depth; so that by reason of the construction and maintenance of the pier the plaintiff was prevented from reaching navigable water of greater depth than 5 feet.
The plaintiff desired to land freight on the new south pier and thus convey it to the lot in question. But he was prevented from doing so by the defendant, Wheeler, superintendent of the property, who was in possession of and exercised exclusive control over the canal and the pier as an officer or agent of the United States, and not otherwise.
No part of the pier in question in front of Private Land Claim No. 3 rests upon the fast land within that claim, but entirely upon submerged lands in front of or opposite to the fast land. The water between the pier and dry land is very shoal.
St. Mary's river forms a part of the boundary line between the United States and Canada, and, where navigable, forms, with the Great Lakes, a highway for interstate and international commerce. Near the point in question the river was not originally navigable, owing to the falls, and the canal was built around the falls to connect its navigable parts above and below, and was used in connection therewith for the purposes of such commerce.
The present action was brought by Scranton against Wheeler in the circuit court of Chippewa county, Michigan, the declaration alleging that the plaintiff was the owner in fee, but was illegally deprived by the defendant of the possession of his interest in 'Private Land Claim No. 3, Whelpley's survey, in the village of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, including therein that portion of the land beneath the water of St. Mary's river from the river bank on said lot to the thread of the stream of said river, which forms a part of said lot, and all riparian rights belonging and attaching thereto and being a part thereof;' which premises the plaintiff claimed in fee. The damages alleged were $35,000.
Upon writ of error to this court the judgment of the circuit court of appeals was reversed, upon the joint motion of the parties, with directions to remand the case to the state court for trial. The parties concurred in the opinion that the case was not removable from the state court,Tennessee v. Union & Planters' Bank, 152 U. S. 454, 38 L. ed. 511, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 654, and Chappell v. Waterworth, 155 U. S. 102, 39 L. ed. 85, 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 34, being cited by them in support of that view.
That under article 5 of the Amendments to the Constitution of the United States the property in question could not lawfully be taken for the public use to which it was appropriated, without just compensation having been made therefor to the owner, or without due process of law.
These instructions were severally refused, and to that action of the court the plaintiff excepted.
In charging the jury the court stated that the United States district attorney had suggested in writing that the property in controversy, the title and possession of which were the subjects of this litigation, was, and for many years had been, in the possession of the United States through its officers and agents; that it was held for public uses in connection with the commerce and navigation of the Great Lakes; that the nominal defendant had no personal interest in the matter; that his physical possession of the premises was in his official capacity, and in law the possession of the United States; that the United States had always held title to the said land, and now holds possession under its claim of title; that this action was in effect an action against the United States government, which in its sovereign capacity could not be sued; and for these reasons the district attorney asked that all proceedings by stayed and the suit dismissed.
A verdict for the defendant was directed on the ground that, in legal effect, the action was against the United States, and that a judgment for the plaintiff would be one against the government and its property.
In the supreme court of the state the failure of the trial court to charge the jury as requested by the plaintiff, and the direction to the jury to return a verdict for the defendant, were assigned for error. That court, all the justices concurring, held that the action was not against the United States, but affirmed the judgment upon other grounds. It said: 'When one in the actual possession of property defends his right of possession upon the ground that the government, state or national, has placed him in possession, he must show that the right of the government is paramount to the right of the plaintiff, or judgment will go against him. This point hsa been settled by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States rendered May 10, 1897. Tindal v. Wesley, 167 U. S. 204, 42 L. ed. 137, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 770. In that case the authorities upon this point are reviewed at length, including the case of Stanley v. Schwalby, 162 U. S. 255, 40 L. ed. 960, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 754, upon which defendant mainly relies. The United States government took possession of the submerged land of the plaintiff for the purpose of erecting thereon piers in aid of the immense navigation upon the Great Lakes and the rivers connecting them. That the improvements made were necessary to aid and protect this navigation is established beyond dispute. Had the government the right to make these improvements upon the submerged land without compensation to the adjoining owner? It is conceded that under the law of Michigan the title to submerged lands is in the adjoining owner to the thread of the stream. It is insisted in behalf of the plaintiff that the government possesses no right to so use his land, although submerged, and although necessary to so use it in aid of navigation, as to cut off his access to the open water. It is contended, on the other hand, that this title to submerged lands along navigable waters, and the right of access thereto, are subject to the paramount right of the United States to use this land in such manner as it shall determine to be necessary in aid of navigation. The court of appeals was unanimous in its opinion against the plaintiff's claim. In a very able opinion delivered by Judge Lurton the facts are clearly stated, the authorities cited, and we think the conclusion there reached is the correct one. We therefore deem it unnecessary for us to enter into a long discussion of the law and the authorities. The Hawkins Point Lighthouse Case, 39 Fed. Rep. 77, appears to be exactly in point, and to rule the present case. We think the conclusion reached by the court below was a correct one, although it gave a wrong reason.' 113 Mich. 565, 71 N. W. 1091.
The Hawkins Point Lighthouse Case, referred to in the opinion of the state court, was ejectment brought in a circuit court of the United States against a government keeper of a lighthouse to recover possession of such house, erected in the Patapsco river, a publicnavigable water of the United States, by the lighthouse board in pursuance of acts of Congress. There was no condemnation for public use of the lands upon which the lighthouse rested, nor was any compensation made to anyone for the site. The plaintiff was the owner of the upland, but had not, in the exercise of his riparian right, improved out into the water in front of his land. The court, speaking by Judge Morris, held that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover, saying: 'While the submerged land remains a part of the bed of the river it is not private property in the sense of the 5th Amendment to the Federal Constitution. As was declared in Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 725, 18 L. ed. 99, the navigable waters 'are the public property of the nation, and subject to all the requisite legislation by Congress.' In the hands of the state or of the state's grantee the bed of a navigable river remains subject to an easement of navigation, which the general government can lawfully enforce, improve, and protect. It is by no means true that any dealing with a navigable stream which impairs the value of the rights of riparian owners gives them a claim for compensation. The contrary doctrine, that, in order to develop the greatest public utility of a waterway, private convenience must often suffer without compensation, has been sanctioned by repeated decisions of the Supreme Court. The following are cases all involving that proposition: The Black Bird Creek Case, 2 Pet. 245, 7 L. ed. 412; Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713, 18 L. ed. 96; Pound v. Turck, 95 U. S. 459, 24 L. ed. 525; Wisconsin v. Duluth, 96 U. S. 379, 24 L. ed. 668; South Carolina v. Georgia, 93 U. S. 4, 23 L. ed. 782. If it were made apparent to Congress that any extension of the plaintiff's present shore line into the river tended to impair the navigability of the stream or its use as a highway of commerce, Congress could authorize the agents of the United States to establish the present shore as the line beyond which no structures of any kind could be extended, and the plaintiff would have no claim for compensation. If the plaintiff could thus lawfully be prevented from appropriating to his private use any part of the submerged land lying in front of his shore line, and the whole of it be kept subservient to the easement of navigation, how can it be successfully claimed that he must be paid for the small portion covered by the lighthouse 200 feet from the shore, which has been taken for a use as strictly necessary to safe navigation as the improved channel itself? The court of appeals of Maryland, whenever called upon to declare the nature of the title of the state and its grantees in the land at the bottom of navigable streams, has uniformly held that the soil below high-water mark was as much a part of the jus publicum as the stream itself.' 39 Fed. Rep. 77.
The plaintiff, Scranton, has assigned various grounds of error. These grounds are substantially those embodied in his requests for instructions in the trial court, and which were insisted upon in the supreme court of the state.
Messrs. John C. Donnelly and H. P. Davock for plaintiff in error.
Mr. Robert A. Howard and Solicitor General Richards for defendant in error.
1. The government insists that ejectment is not the proper remedy for a riparian owner to secure the removal of a structure that interferes with access by him from his fast land to navigable water. A sufficient answer to this objection is that the state court recognized the present action as a proper one under the laws of Michigan for the relief sought by the plaintiff. We have therefore to consider only the controlling questions of a Federal nature presented by the record and decided by the state court.
These principles are applicable to the present case, and show that it is not within the rule forbidding a suit against the United States except with its consent.
3. The vital question, therefore, is the one heretofore mentioned, namely, whether the prohibition in the Constitution of the United States, of the taking of private property for public use without just compensation, has any application to the case of an owner of land bordering on a public navigable river whose access from his land to navigability is permanently lost by reason of the construction of a pier resting on submerged lands away from, but in front of, his upland, and which pier was erected by the United States, not with any intent to impair the rights of riparian owners, but for the purpose only of improving the navigation of such river.
Undoubtedly compensation must be made or secured to the owner when that which is done is to be regarded as a taking of private property for public use within the meaning of the 5th Amendment of the Constitution; and of course in its exercise of the power to regulate commerce Congress may not override the provision that just compensation must be made when private property is taken for public use. What is private property within the meaning of that Amendment, or what is a taking of private property for public use, is not always easy to determine. No decision of this court has announced a rule that will embrace every case. But what has been said in some cases involving the general question will assist us in determining whether the present plaintiff has been denied the protection secured by the constitutional provision in question.
But the case most analogous to the present one is that of Gibson v. United States, 166 U. S. 269, 271, 275, 276, 41 L. ed. 996, 998, 1002, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 578. That was an action in the court of claims to recover damages resulting from the construction of a dike by the United States in the Ohio river, near the plaintiff's farm on Neville island, a short distance below Pittsburg.
From the finding of facts in that case it appears that at the time the dike was constructed Mrs. Gibson's farm was in a high state of cultivation, with a frontage of 1,000 feet on the main channel of the Ohio river, and had a landing that was used in shipping products from and in bringing supplies to it, and that there was no other landing on the farm which the owner could use in shipping products and in receiving supplies; that the dike was constructed under the authority of an act of Congress appropriating money for improving the Ohio river; that the owner was unable to use the landing for the shipment of products from and supplies to the farm for the greater part of the gardening season on account of the dike obstructing the passage of boats, and could only use the landing at a high stage of water; that after the dike was made she could not, during the ordinary stage of water, ship products from or receive supplies for her farm, without going over the farms of her neighbors to reach another landing; and that in consequence of the construction and maintenance of the dike the plaintiff's farm had been reduced in value from $600 to $150 or $200 per acre. It was further found that the plaintiff's access to the navigable part of the river was not entirely cut off; that at a 9-foot stage of water, which frequently occurred during November, December, March, April, and May, she could get into her dock in any manner, while from a 3-foot stage of water she could communicate with the navigable channel through a chute, and at any time haul out to the channel by wagon; that no water was thrown back on the land by the building of the dike; and that the dike itself did not come into physical contact with the land, and was constructed in the exercise of a claimed right to improve the navigation of the river.
In the light of these adjudications can it be held that Scranton, the plaintiff, is entitled, by reason of the construction of the pier in question, to compensation for the destruction of his right, as riparian owner, of access from his land to the navigable part of the river immediately in front of it?
The decision in Yates v. Milwaukee cannot be regarded as an adjudication upon the particular point involved in the present case. That, as we have seen, was a case in which the riparian owner had in conformity with law erected a wharf in front of his upland in order to have access to navigable water. The city of Milwaukee attempted arbitrarily and capriciously to destroy or remove the wharf that had lawfully come into existence, and was not shown, in any appropriate mode, to have been an obstruction to navigation. It was a case in which a municipal corporation intended the actual destruction of tangible property belonging to a riparian owner and lawfully used by him in reaching navigable water, and not, like this, a case of the exercise in a proper manner of an admitted governmental power resulting indirectly or incidentally in the loss of the citizen's right of access to navigation,a right never exercised by him in the construction of a wharf before the improvement in question was made by the government.
While the present case differs in its facts from any case heretofore decided by this court, it is embraced by principles of constitutional law that have become firmly established.
The Constitution invests Congress with the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states. This power includes the power to prescribe 'the rule by which commerce is to be governed;' 'is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations other than are prescribed in the Constitution;' and 'comprehends navigation within the limits of every state in the Union, so far as that navigation may be, in any manner, connected with 'commerce with foreign nations, or among the several states, or with the Indian tribes." Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 196, 197, 6 L. ed. 23, 70.
All the cases concur in holding that the power of Congress to regulate commerce, and therefore navigation, is paramount, and is unrestricted except by the limitations upon its authority by the Constitution. Of course, every part of the Constitution is as binding upon Congress as upon the people. The guaranties prescribed by it for the security of private property must be respected by all. But whether navigation upon waters over which Congress may exert its authority requires improvement at all, or improvement in a particular way, are matters wholly within its discretion; and the judiciary is without power to control or defeat the will of Congress, so long as that branch of the government does not transcend the limits established by the supreme law of the land. Is the broad power with which Congress is invested burdened with the condition that a riparian owner whose land borders upon a navigable water of the United States shall be compensated for his right of access to navigability whenever such right ceases to be of value solely in consequence of the improvement of navigation by means of piers resting upon submerged lands away from the shore line? We think not. The question before us does not depend upon the inquiry whether the title to the submerged lands on which the new south pier rests is in the state or in the riparian owner. It is the settled rule in Michigan that 'the title of the riparian owner extends to the middle line of the lake or stream of the inland waters.' Webber v. Pere Marquette Boom Co. 62 Mich. 636, 30 N. W. 469, and authorities there cited. But it is equally well settled in that state that the rights of the riparian owner are subject to the public easement or servitude of navigation. Lorman v. Benson, 8 Mich. 18, 32, 77 Am. Dec. 435; Ryan v. Brown, 18 Mich. 195, 207, 100 Am. Dec. 154. So that, whether the title to the submerged lands of navigable waters is in the state or in the riparian owners, it was acquired subject to the rights which the public have in the navigation of such waters. The primary use of the waters and the lands under them is for purposes of navigation, and the erection of piers in them to improve navigation for the public is entirely consistent with such use, and infringes no right of the riparian owner. Whatever the nature of the interest of a riparian owner in the submerged lands in front of his upland bordering on a public navigable water, his title is not as full and complete as his title to fast land which has no direct connection with the navigation of such water. It is a qualified title, a bare technical title, not at his absolute disposal, as is his upland, but to be held at all times subordinate to such use of the submerged lands and of the waters flowing over them as may be consistent with or demanded by the public right of navigation. In Lorman v. Benson, above cited, the supreme court of Michigan, speaking by Justice Campbell, declared the right of navigation to be one to which all others were subservient. The learned counsel for the plaintiff frankly states that compensation cannot be demanded for the appropriation of the submerged lands in question, and that the United States under the power to regulate commerce has an unquestioned right to occupy them for a lawful purpose and in a lawful manner. This must be so,certainly in every case where the use of the submerged lands is necessary or appropriate in improving navigation. But the contention is that compensation must be made for the loss of the plaintiff's access from his upland to navigability, incidentally resulting from the occupancy of the submerged lands, even if the construction and maintenance of a pier resting upon them be necessary or valuable in the proper improvement of navigation. We cannot assent to this view. If the riparian owner cannot enjoy access to navigability because of the improvement of navigation by the construction away from the shore line of works in a public navigable river or water, and if such right of access ceases alone for that reason to be of value, there is not, within the meaning of the Constitution, a taking of private property for public use, but only a consequential injury to a right which must be enjoyed, as was said in the Yates Case, 'in due subjection to the rights of the public,'an injury resulting incidentally from the exercise of a governmental power for the benefit of the general public, and from which no duty arises to make or secure compensation to the riparian owner. The riparian owner acquired the right of access to navigability subject to the contingency that such right might become valueless in consequence of the erection, under competent authority, of structures on the submerged lands in front of his property for the purpose of improving navigation. When erecting the pier in question, the government had no object in view except, in the interest of the public, to improve navigation. It was not designed arbitrarily or capriciously to destroy rights belonging to any riparian owner. What was done was manifestly necessary to meet the demands of international and interstate commerce. In our opinion, it was not intended that the paramount authority of Congress to improve the navigation of the public navigable waters of the United States should be crippled by compelling the government to make compensation for the injury to a riparian owner's right of access to navigability, that might incidentally result from an improvement ordered by Congress. The subject with which Congress dealt was navigation. That which was sought to be accomplished was simply to improve navigation on the waters in question so as to meet the wants of the vast commerce passing and to pass over them. Consequently the agents designated to perform the work ordered or authorized by Congress had the right to proceed in all proper ways without taking into account the injury that might possibly or indirectly result from such work to the right of access by riparian owners to navigability.
It follows from what has been said that the pier in question was the property of the United States, and that when the defendant refused to plaintiff the privilege of using it as a wharf or landing place he violated no right secured to the latter by the Constitution.
We are of opinion that the court below correctly held that the plaintiff had no such right of property in the submerged lands on which the pier in question rests as entitles him, under the Constitution, to be compensated for any loss of access from his upland to navigability, resulting from the erection and maintenance of such pier by the United States in order to improve, and which manifestly did improve, the navigation of a public navigable water.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Michigan is therefore affirmed.
Gilmore G. Scranton, the plaintiff in error, derived his title to a tract of land, known as Private Land Claim No. 3, and fronting on the St. Mary's river, a stream naturally navigable, under a patent of the United States granted on October 6th, 1874.
It must be regarded as the settled law of this court that grants by Congress of portions of the public lands, bordering on or bounded by navigable waters, convey, of their own force, no title or right below high-water mark, but leave the question of the use of the shores by the owners of uplands to the sovereign control of each state, subject only to the rights vested by the Constitution of the United States.
In Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1, 38 L. ed. 331, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 548, there was a controversy between parties claiming under a patent of the United States for a donation land claim bounded by the Columbia river, and parties claiming under deeds from the state of Oregon for lands between the lines of low and ordinary high tide of the Columbia river. It was held by the supreme court of Oregon (22 Or. 427, 30 Pac. 154) that the lands in question, lying between the uplands and the navigable channel of the Columbia river, belonged to the state of Oregon, and that its deed to such lands conveyed a valid title.
The reasoning and conclusions of this case were followed and applied in the subsequent cases of Mann v. Tacoma Land Co. 153 U. S. 273, 38 L. ed. 714, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 820 ; St. Anthony Falls Water Power Co. v. St. Paul Water Comrs. 168 U. S. 349, 42 L. ed. 497, 18 Sup. Ct. Rep. 157; and Morris v. United States, 174 U. S. 196, 43 L. ed. 946, 19 Sup. Ct. Rep. 649.
It cannot be said that any title to the submerged land became vested in the plaintiff in error, as against the state or its grantees, by reason of the fact that it is the law in Michigan, in the case of lands abutting on navigable streams, thtles to which are derived from the state, that such titles extend to and embrace submerged lands as far as the thread of the stream. It has never been held in Michigan that that doctrine applied to the case of titles derived from the United States.
Shively v. Bowlby and mann v. Tacoma Land Co., above cited, were both cases in which it was held that titles derived under grants by the United States to lands abutting on navigable waters did not avail as against the state and subsequent grantees.
It is not pretended that the state of Michigan ever made any grant of these submerged lands to the plaintiff in error; but, on the contrary, the state in 1881 transferred all its rights in the St. Mary's canal and the public works thereon, with all its appurtenances, to the United States. How. Stat. § 5502.
The question before us does not depend upon the inquiry whether the title to the submerged lands on which the new south pierrests is in the state or in the riparian owner. It is the settled rule in Michigan that 'the title of the riparian owner extends to the middle line of the lake or stream of the inland waters.' Webber v. Pere Marquette Boom Co. 62 Mich. 636, 30 N. W. 469, and authorities there cited. But it is equally well settled in that state that the rights of the riparian owner are subject to the public easement or servitude of navigation. Lorman v. Benson, 8 Mich. 18, 77 Am. Dec. 435; Ryan v. Brown, 18 Mich. 195, 100 Am. Dec. 154.
So that whether the title to the submerged lands of navigable waters is in the state or in the riparian owners, such title was taken subject to the rights which the public have in the navigation of the waters in question. The primary use of the waters and the lands under them is for purposes of navigation, and the erection of piers in them to improve navigation for the public is strictly consistent with such use, and infringes no right of the riparian owner. Whatever the interest of a riparian owner in the submerged lands in front of his upland, his title is not as full and complete as his title acquired to fast land which has no direct connection with the navigation of the river or water on which it borders. It is not a title at his absolute disposal, but is to be held at all times subordinate to such use of the submerged lands and of the waters flowing over them as is consistent with or demanded by the public right of navigation. The learned counsel for the plaintiff frankly states that compensation cannot be demanded for the appropriation of the submerged lands in question, and that the United States, under the power to regulate commerce, has an unquestioned right to occupy them for a lawful purpose and in a lawful manner. This must be so, certainly in every case where the use of the submerged lands is necessary for the improvement of navigation.
It is, I think, impossible to read this language, particularly when read in connection with other passages in the opinion, without understanding it to assert that where the riparian owner has a title to lands under navigable waters adjacent to his upland, such land may be taken into the exclusive possession of the government by the erection of a public work without compensation; and that, even if the state court should hold that the riparian owner had a title to the submerged lands, and was entitled to be compensated for their appropriation for a public purpose connected with navigation, it would be the duty of this court to overrule such a decision.
As, for the reasons already mentioned, no such question is now before us, and therefore those portions of the opinion of the majority cannot justly be hereafter regarded as furnishing a rule of decision in such a case, yet I must be permitted to disavow such a proposition. When the case does arise, I incline to think it can be shown, upon principle and authority, that private property in submerged lands cannot be taken and exclusively occupied for a public purpose without just compensation. At all events, I submit that it will be in time to decide so important a question when it necessarily arises, and when the rights of the owner of the property have been asserted and defended in argument.
To answer such a question, the nature of the riparian right of access must be first determined. That he has such a right all must admit. But does his right constitute 'private property' within the meaning of the Constitution, or is it in the nature of a license, or prescription, of which he can be deprived for the benefit of the public without being entitled to compensation?
The term 'property,' standing alone, includes everything that is the subject of ownership. It is a nomen generalissimum, extending to every species of valuable right and interest, including things real and personal, easements, franchises, and other incorporeal hereditaments. Boston & L. R. Corp. v. Salem & L. R. Co. 2 Gray, 35; Shaw, Ch. J.
'The term 'property,' as applied to lands, comprehends every species of title, inchoate or complete. It is supposed to embrace those rights which lie in contract, those which are executory, as well as those which are executed.' Soulard v. United States, 4 Pet. 511, 7 L. ed. 938; Marshall, Ch. J.
Private property is that which is one's own; something that belongs or inheres exclusively in an individual person.
The right which a riparian owner has in a navigable stream when traveling upon it, or using it for the purpose of navigation, must be distinguished from his right to reach navigable water from his land, and to reach his land from the water. The former right is one which belongs to him as one of the public, and its protection is found in indictments at the suit of the public, sometimes, in special circumstances, in proceedings in equity for the use of all concerned. Being a public right, compensation cannot be had by private parties for any injury affecting it. The latter right is a private one, incident to the ownership of the abutting property, in the enjoyment of which such owner is entitled to the protection of private remedies afforded by the law against wrongdoers, and for which, if it is taken from him for the benefit of the public, he is entitled to compensation.
This distinction has always been recognized by the English courts.
Rose v. Groves, 5 Mann. & G. 613, was a case where an innkeeper was held entitled to recover damages against a defendant for wrongfully preventing the access of guests to his home, situated on the river Thames, by placing timbers in the river opposite the inn, and wherein, meeting the contention that the plaintiff had no private right of action, but that his remedy was by proceedings for a public nuisance, Maule, J., said: 'This is not an action for obstructing the river, but for obstructing the access to the plaintiff's house' on the river.
'As I understand the judgment in Rose v. Groves, it went, not upon the ground of public nuisance, accompanied by particular damage to the plaintiff, but upon the principle that a private right of the plaintiff had been interfered with. The plaintiff, an innkeeper on the banks of a navigable river, complained that the access of the public to his house was obstructed by timber which the defendant had placed in the river; and it would be the height of absurdity to say that a private right was not interfered with, when a man who has been accustomed to enter his house from a highway finds his door made impassable, so that he no longer has access to his house from the public highway. This would equally be a private injury to him, whether the right of the public to pass and repass along the highway were or were not at the same time interfered with. In Rose v. Groves, Chief Justice Tindal put the case distinctly upon the footing of an infringement of a private right. He says: 'A private right is set up on the part of the plaintiff, and to that he complains that an injury has been done;' and then, after stating the facts, adds: 'It appears to me, therefore, that the plaintiff is not complaining of a public injury."
'Unquestionably the owner of a wharf on the river bank has, like every other subject of the realm, the right of navigating the river as one of the public. This, however, is not a right coming to him qua owner or occupier of any lands on the bank; nor is it a right which per se he enjoys in a manner different from any other member of the public.
'But when this right of navigation is connected with an exclusive access to and from a particular wharf, it assumes a very different character. It ceases to be a right held in common with the rest of the public, for other members of the public have no access to or from the river at the particular place, and it becomes a form of enjoyment of the land, and of the river in connection with the land, the disturbance of which may be vindicated in damages by an action, or restrained by an injunction. It is, as was decided by this House in the cases to which I have referred, a portion of the valuable enjoyment of the land, and any work which takes it away is held to be an 'injurious affecting' of the land, that is to say, the occasioning to the land of an injuria or an infringement of right. The taking away of river frontage of a wharf, or the raising of an impediment along the frontage, interrupting the access between the wharf and the river, may be an injury to the public right of navigation, but it is not the less an injury to the owner of the wharf, which, in the absence of any parliamentary authority, would be compensated by damages or altogether prevented.' L. R. 1 App. Cas. 671.
This distinction between the right of immediate access from the abutter's property to and from a highway, whether a street or a navigable stream, and an injury arising after he reaches it and which is common to him and the rest of the public, is recognized by the courts of the states, and the former right is held to be a valuable one, which cannot be destroyed without compensation.
Thus, in Haskell v. New Bedford, 108 Mass. 208, it was held that where a sewer constructed by the city of New Bedford discharged filth into the dock of the plaintiff, obstructing his use of it, it created a private nuisance to the plaintiff upon his own land for which he could maintain an action for the special damages thereby occasioned to him, without regard to the question whether it was also a nuisance to the public, Mr. Justice Gray, now a justice of this court, saying: 'The plaintiff's title extended, by virtue of the statute of 1806 chap. 18 to the channel of the river; the filling up of the dock impaired his use and enjoyment of it for the purpose for which it had been constructed and actually used; and the injury thus done to him differed, not only in degree but in kind, from the injury to the public by interference with navigation. Neither this special injury to him, nor that occasioned to his premises by making them offensive and unhealthy, was merged in the common nuisance,'and citing, among other cases, Rose v. Groves, one of the English cases above mentioned.
And in Brayton v. Fall River, 113 Mass. 218, 18 Am. Rep. 470, it was held that while the owner of a wharf upon a tide-water creek cannot maintain an action for an illegal obstruction to the creek, that being a common damage to all who use it, yet for an obstruction adjoining the wharf, which prevents vessels from lying in it in the accustomed manner, this being a particular damage, he can maintain an action.
'While the riparian proprietor only takes to the water line, it by no means follows, nor are we willing to admit, that he can be deprived of his riparian rights without compensation. As proprietor of the adjoining land, and as connected with it, he has the right of exclusive access to and from the waters of the lake at that particular place; he has the right to build piers and wharves in front of his land out to navigable waters, in aid of navigation, not interfering with the public use. These are private rights incident to the ownership of the shore, which he possesses distinct from the rest of the public. . . .
The courts of New York, which formerly took another view, now hold that right of access is a valuable property right and entitled to constitutional protection as such. Steers v. Brooklyn, 101 N. Y. 51, 4 N. E. 7; Langdon v. New York, 93 N. Y. 129.
'It has been established in this state New Yrok by judicial decision that the legislature of the state has an inherent right to control and regulate the navigable waters within the state. . . . The individual right of the riparian owner was considered . . . as subject to the right of the state to abridge or destroy it at pleasure by a construction or filling in beyond his outer line, and that, too, without compensation made.
This case, therefore, must be regarded as an adjudication that, in the state of New York, the nature and extent of riparian rights are to be determined by the law of the state, and that the Federal courts, in passing upon such rights, follow that law.
In Backus v. Detroit, 49 Mich. 110, 13 N. W. 380, it was held by the supreme court of Michigan, per Cooley, J., that the better and more sensible doctrine is that the land under the water in front of a riparian proprietor, though beyond the line of private ownership, cannot be taken and appropriated to a public use by a railway company under its right of eminent domain without making compensation to the riparian proprietor.
Leaving the decisions of the state courts, let us turn to those of this court,and I shall not consider it necessary to advert to the earlier decisions, because they are referred to and considered in the later ones.
The opinion in Yates v. Milwaukee, like that of the majority in the present case, may be liable to the criticism made upon it in Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1, 36, 38 L. ed. 331, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 548, as having gone too far in saying that the owner of land adjoining any navigable water, whether within or above the ebb and flow of the tide, has, independently of local law, a right of property in the soil below high-water mark, and the right to build out wharves so far, at least, as to reach water really navigable. But, so corrected, it is a direct authority for the proposition we are now considering, namely, that riparian rights, when recognized as existing by the law of the state, are a valuable property, and the subject of compensation when taken for public use.
In Eldridge v. Trezevant, 160 U. S. 452, 40 L. ed. 490, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 345, it was again held by this court, following Hardin v. Jordan, 140 U. S. 384, 35 L. ed. 434, 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 808, 838, and Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1, 58, 38 L. ed. 331, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 548, that the nature and legal incidents of land abutting on navigable streams were declared by the law of the state wherein the land was situated. A bill was filed in the circuit court of the United States for the western district of Louisiana by Eldridge, a citizen of Mississippi, against the board of engineers of the state of Louisiana and one Trezevant, who had been employed by that board to construct a public levee through a plantation belonging to the complainant and situated in Carroll township, state of Louisiana, in pursuance of an act of the general assembly of the state. The circuit court dismissed the bill, and an appeal was taken to this court. It appeared, and indeed was conceded by the appellant, that under the law and constitution of the state, and under French law existing before the transfer of the territory to the United States, land for the construction of a public levee on the Mississippi river could be taken, without compensation, by reason of a servitude on such lands for such a purpose. But it was contended on behalf of the appellant that, because he was a citizen of another state, and because he derived his title through a patent of the United States, that whatever may have been the condition of the ancient grants, no such condition attached to his ownership, and that the lands bordering on a navigable stream were as much within the protection of the constitutional principle awarding compensation as other property.
'These decisions not only dispose of the proposition that lands situated within a state, but whose title is derived from the United States, are entitled to be exempted from local regulations admitted to be applicable to lands held by grant from the state, but also of the other proposition that the provisions of the 14th Amendment extend to and override public rights existing in the form of servitudes or easements, held by the courts of a state to be valid under the Constitution and laws of such state.
The only injury suffered, therefore, by the plaintiff was the inconvenience of having to haul her produce by wagon over and across the dike in such portions of the year when the water was below a 3-foot stage, and when, at that part of the Ohio river, navigation was almost wholly suspended. At other times, and when the stage of the water permitted navigation, the plaintiff had the use of her dock. The court of claims dismissed the petition, and its decree was affirmed by this court. There was no pretense that the dike in question touched the plaintiff's land at any point.
The Chief Justice, in the opinion, put the judgment chiefly on the decisions of the state court. He said: 'By the established law of Pennsylvania, as observed by Mr. Justice Gray in Shively v. Bowlby, 'the owner of lands bounded by navigable water has the title in the soil between high and low water mark, subject to the public right of navigation and to the authority of the legislature to make public improvements upon it, and to regulate his use of it." And after citing several Pennsylvania cases, the Chief Justice concluded his opinion by saying: 'In short, the damage resulting from the prosecution of this improvement of a navigable highway, for the public good, was not the result of a taking of the appellant's property, and was merely incidental to the exercise of a servitude to which her property had always been subject.' It is obvious, therefore, that in this case the court applied the doctrine trine of Eldridge v. Trezevant, which was cited in the opinion, and that the servitude to which the plaintiff's lands were said to be subject was a servitude existing under the state law, and not a servitude created by Federal law.
In the states which originally formed this Union, or in those admitted since, it has never been held that the United States, through any of their departments, could impose servitudes upon the lands owned by the states or by their grantees. The cases are all the other way. New Orleans v. United States, 10 Pet. 736, 9 L. ed. 602; Pollard v. Hagan, 3 How. 212, 11 L. ed. 565; Barney v. Keokuk, 94 U. S. 324, 24 L. ed. 224; Van Brocklin v. Tennessee, 117 U. S. 151, 168, sub nom. Van Brocklin v. Anderson, 29 L. ed. 845, 851, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 670; Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1, 38 L. ed. 331, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 548.
In the recent case of Morris v. United States, 174 U. S. 196, 43 L. ed. 946, 19 Sup. Ct. Rep. 649, the question of the nature and extent of riparian rights on the Potomac river in front of the city of Washington was involved. The majority of the court held that, under the evidence, the titles of the owners of lots in the city plans were bounded by Water street, and that, therefore, such owners possessed no riparian rights entitled to compensation by the United States in carrying our a scheme of improvement of the waters of the river.
The opinion of the court proceeded on the assumption, as matter of law, that owners of land abutting on the river would be possessed of riparian rights, and entitled, therefore, to compensation if such rights were impaired paired or destroyed by the improvements proposed by the government, but held, as a conclusion from the evidence, that, as matter of fact, the owners of lots under the city plans did not have titles extending to the river, but that their lots were bounded by Water street, the title to which was in the city, and therefore no compensation for exclusion from the river could be enforced. The case, therefore, may be properly regarded as an authority for the proposition that the owners of lots abutting on a navigable river are entitled to compensation if their riparian right of access is taken from them by improvements made by the government to promote the navigability of the Potomac river. The long investigation by court and counsel was, indeed, labor in vain if, at last, riparian rights possessed by the lotowners should be decided not to be private property within the protection of the Constitution.
The argument against the right of compensation in such a case seems to be based upon an assumption that because the government has the power to make improvements in navigable waters it follows that it can do so without making compensation to the owners of private property destroyed by the improvements. But this assumption is, as I think, entirely without foundation, and, if permitted by the courts to be made practically applicable, would amount to a disregard of the express mandate of the Constitution that private property shall not be taken for public uses without just compensation.
'The power to establish postoffices and to create courts within the states was conferred upon the Federal government; included in it was authority to obtain sites for such offices and for courthouses, and to obtain them by such means as were known and appropriate. The right of eminent domain was one of those means well known when the Constitution was adopted, and employed to obtain land for public uses. Its existence, therefore, in the grantee of that power, ought not to be questioned. The Constitution itself contains an implied recognition of it beyond what may justly be implied from the express grants. The 5th Amendment contains a provision that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. What is that but an implied assertion that, on making just compensation, it may be taken?' Kohl v. United States, 91 U. S. 374, 23 L. ed. 452.
Accordingly in that case, a proceeding instituted by the United States to appropriate a percel of land in the city of Cincinnati as a site for a postoffice and other public uses was upheld, but those proceedings contemplated compensation, and Congress, in the act authorizing the proceedings, appropriated money for the purpose.
'It cannot be doubted . . . that Congress has the power in its discretion to compel the removal of this lock and dam as obstructions to the navigation of the river, or to condemn and take them for the purpose of promoting its navigability. In other words, it is within the competency of Congress to make such provision respecting the improvement of the Monongahela river as in its judgment the public interests demand. Its dominion is supreme.
As already remarked, the power of the government to control and regulate navigable streams, and to carry into effect schemes for their improvement, is not directly given by the Constitution, but is only recognized by the courts as an incident to the power expressly given to regulate commerce between the states and with foreign nations.
Now, if it be held that Congress has power to take or destroy private property lying under or adjacent to navigable streams, without compensating their owners, because it is done in the exercise of the power to regulate commerce, then it must follow that the same unlimited power can be exercised with respect to private property not in nor bounded by water. The power of Congress to regulate commerce is not restricted to commerce carried on in lakes and rivers, but equally extends to commerce carried on by land. If Congress, yielding to a loud and increasing popular demand that it should take possession and control of the railroads of the country, or should undertake the construction of new railroads as arteries of commerce, this novel notion, that the existence of the right to regulate commerce creates of itself, and independently of the law of the state, a Federal servitude on all property to be affected by the exercise of that right, would apply to all kinds of private property wherever situated.
But it may be asked why, if the question as to riparian rights is one of state law, the decision of the supreme court of Michigan in the present case, denying the claim of the abutting owner for compensation for the loss of his access to the river, is not conclusive? The answer to this question will be found in the opinion of that court. Instead of ascertaining and applying, or professing to apply, the law of the state in respect to riparian rights, the supreme court of Michigan treated the question as one under Federal law, and, following what it understood to be the doctrine laid down by several Federal circuit court decisions as obligatory, held that it was competent for the government of the United States, in the exercise of its power to regulate commerce between the states, to deprive abutting owners of their right of access to navigable streams without compensating them for their loss. The cases so relied on were Stockton v. Baltimore & N. Y. R. Co. 32 Fed. Rep. 9, 1 Inters. Com. Rep. 411; Hawkins Point Lighthouse Case, 39 Fed. Rep. 77; and Scranton v. Wheeler, 16 U. S. App. 152, 57 Fed. Rep. 803, 6 C. C. A. 585.
Mr. Justice Bradley was himself a New Jersey lawyer, and availed himself, in that case, of the law of that state, which has always been to the effect that the land underlying the tide waters belonged to the state, and was held for a public use. His view was that as, under the law of New Jersey, the land beneath tide waters was held by the state for public uses, such land was not private property within the meaning of the Constitution, or that, at all events, its occupation, to a limited extent, by the pier of a bridge intended to promote commerce, was not a diversion of the property from its original use.
Whether the distinction suggested by Mr. Justice Bradley, between property held by the state for public purposes and private property, be or be not sound, the doctrine has no application to the present case, and, as the circuit court case was not brought for review to this court, the suggestion remains unadjudged.
The so-called Hawkins Point Lighthouse Case was an ejectment brought in the Circuit court of the United States for the district of Maryland to recover possession of the land covered by a lighthouse erected on land lying under the waters of a tide-water navigable river, by the lighthouse board, in pursuance of acts of Congress. The plaintiff claimed to be the owner of the submerged land, and the action did not involve the question of access to the river. Judge Morris held that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover; and, although stating that 'the court of appeals of Maryland, whenever called upon to declare the nature of the title of the state and its grantees in the land at the bottom of navigable streams, has uniformly held that the soil below high-water mark was as much a part of the jus publicum as the stream itself,' extended Mr. Justice Bradley's suggestion in the New Jersey case, and declared that the plaintiff, as grantee of the state, had no private property in the submerged land entitled to constitutional protection. As the structure was a lighthouse the case might have been governed by peculiar considerations, but the learned judge of the circuit court seems to have gone further, and to have that, as a matter of Federal law, 'in the hands of the state or of the state's grantees the bed of a navigable river remains subject to an easement of navigation, which the general government can lawfully enforce, improve, and protect, and that it is by no means true that any dealing with a navigable stream which impairs the value of the rights of riparian owners gives them a claim for compensation.' If by this is meant that riparian owners may be deprived, without compensation, of access to navigable streams abutting on their land, by reason of a supposed servitude or easement imposed by the power granted to Congress by the Constitution to regulate commerce, then, for the reasons heretofore given and under the authorities cited, such a view cannot be sustained. The case under the name of Hill v. United States was brought to this court, but the writ of error was dismissed on an independent ground, which rendered it unnecessary for this court to pass upon the questions ruled in the court below. There the question of the right of the plaintiff to be compensated for deprivation of his riparian rights was not considered, and, indeed, could not be, as it was held that neither the circuit court nor this court had jurisdiction. Hill v. United States, 149 U. S. 593, 37 L. ed. 862, 13 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1011.
The only other case relied on by the supreme court of Michigan was Scranton v. Wheeler, 16 U. S. App. 152, 57 Fed. Rep. 803, 6 C. C. A. 585, being this identical case, which had been removed from the state to the Federal court. It was subsequently brought to this court, but was dismissed because the record did not show that a Federal question had been raised or presented in the plaintiff's statement of his case in the state court. Accordingly the cause was remanded to the state court, and subsequently reached this court by a writ of error to the supreme court of Michigan. While the case was in the circuit court of appeals an opinion was filed by Circuit Judge Lurton, in which, without adverting to the law of the state of Michigan, or citing any decisions of the supreme court of that state, in respect to riparian rights, he held that the right of the plaintiff, of access to the navigable water, was subordinate to the power of the Federal government to control the stream for the purposes of commerce, and that the plaintiff was therefore not entitled to compensation for the extinction of his right.
The proposition, frequently made, that the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, and therefore navigation, is paramount, can properly be understood to mean only that, as between the authority of the states in such matters and that of the general government, the latter is superior. It has no just reference to questions concerning private property lying within the states. Much less can it be rightly used to signify that such power can be exercised by Congress without regard to the right of just compensation when private property is taken for public use.
The suggestion that 'the riparian owner acquired the right of access to navigability, subject to the possibility that such right might become valueless in consequence of the erection, under competent authority, of structures on the submerged lands in front of his property, for the purpose of improving navigation,' would seem to be irrelevant, because the liability that his private property may at all times be taken for public uses is known to everyone. But hitherto it has not been supposed that the knowledge of such liability deprives the owner of the right of compensation when his property is actually so taken.
Nor can the statement that, in the opinion of this court, 'it was not intended by the framers of the Constitution that the paramount authority of Congress to improve the navigation of the public navigable waters of the United States should be crippled by compelling the government to make compensation for the injury to a riparian owner's right of access to navigability that might incidentally result from an improvement,' be admitted. The intention of the framers is seen in the provisions of the Constitution, and in them the right to take private property for public uses is indissolubly connected with the duty to make just compensation. It cannot be supposed that a recognition of such a duty would cripple the government in the just exercise of the power it incidentally possesses to regulate interstate navigation.
As, then, the supreme court of Michigan considered the question solely as a Federal one, in which it supposed it was controlled by the Federal cases cited, this court has jurisdiction to review its judgment; and as by that judgment the plaintiff in error has been Refused the protection of the Constitution of the United States claimed by him, I think the judgment should be reversed and the cause remanded to be proceeded in according to law.
Mr. Justice Gray and Mr. Justice Peckham concur in this dissent.
MARY R. PEABODY, Saco & Biddeford Savings Institution, Samuel Ellery Jennison, and the Portsmouth Harbor Land & Hotel Company, Appts., v. UNITED STATES.
YEARSLEY et al. v. W. A. ROSS CONST. CO.
UNITED STATES v. CHICAGO, M., ST. P. & P.R. CO. et al.
REICHELDERFER et al., Commissioners of District of Columbia, v. QUINN et al.
Buford MALONE, Jr., Petitioner, v. James A. BOWDOIN et al.
UNITED STATES, Petitioner, v. VIRGINIA ELECTRIC AND POWER COMPANY.
H. P. DUGAN et al., Petitioners, v. Everett G. RANK et al. The DELANO-EARLIMART IRRIGATION DISTRICT et al., Petitioners, v. Everett G. RANK et al.
JENNIE A. WILLINK, Executrix, etc., Appt., v. UNITED STATES.
HENRY MUHLKER, v. NEW YORK & HARLEM RALILROAD COMPANY and New York Central & Hudson River Railroad Company.
LEWIS BLUE POINT OYSTER CULTIVATION COMPANY, Plff. in Err., v. J. MARVIN BRIGGS.
HENRY FORD & SON, Inc., v. LITTLE FALLS FIBRE CO., et al.

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