Case Name: Tomlin v. The Dubuque, Bellevue & Miss. R. R. Co.
Court: Iowa Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Iowa
Decision Date: 1871-07-26
Citations: 32 Iowa 106
Docket Number: 
Parties: Tomlin v. The Dubuque, Bellevue & Miss. R. R. Co.
Judges: 
Reporter: Iowa Reports
Volume: 32
Pages: 106–117

Head Matter:
Tomlin v. The Dubuque, Bellevue & Miss. R. R. Co.
,1. Riparian rights: Mississippi river. The Mississippi river is a ' navigable stream, and a riparian proprietor thereon owns the fee of the soil only to ordinary high-water mark. The case of McManus v. Ga/rmichael, 8 Iowa, 1, re-affirmed.
3.-CONSTRUCTION OP RAILROAD: EIGHT OP RIPARIAN OWNER TO DAMAGES. The owner of lands lying along such river has no private right in the waters thereof, or in the shore between high and low-water mark, and he cannot recover damages for being deprived of access to the stream by reason of the construction of a railroad along its banks between such marks. Beck, J., dissenting.
Appeal from, Dubuque Gweuit Cou/rt.
Wednesday, July 26.
The plaintiff appealed to the Dubuque circuit court from an assessment by commissioners of damages, at $150, for the taking right of way for railroad purposes by defendant over certain described property. Upon the trial plaintiff testified that he owned the premises in question, embracing about 1,200 acres, extending along the shore of the Mississippi river about ten miles, and from a mile to a mile and a half back from the river, and that they are principally woodlands, small patches only having been cleared. That on his land, along the bank of the river below the bluff, is a bench, varying from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet wide, upon which defendant’s road is proposed to be built. The bluff is steep, and about one hundred and fifty feet high the entire length of the premises, except where four or five ravines make down through it.
That about twenty-five feet of the river side of the right of way, as laid out by the company along this bench, the whole length of the land in question extends below ordi nary high water, leaving seventy-five feet, including the road-bed of defendant’s railroad, above high-water mark the whole length. That the whole tract of land is worth from $30 to $35 per acre, without the railroad; and with the railroad the whole tract will be damaged $5.00 per acre. That he used the land only to cut off wood, which he marketed in Gaiena, about four miles distant. That the construction of the road; would cut him off from banking wood for that purpose, and that the chief item of damage going to make up the depreciation of $5.00 per acre was the difficulty of getting wood over the railroad to the river. Several other witnesses testified on behalf of plaintiff, that the construction of the proposed road would depreciate the value of the whole of plaintiff’s land $4.00 or $5.00 per acre, and this depreciation would be caused by the difficulty of transporting wood and farm products from the railroad to the river. Defendant introduced several witnesses, who testified that the whole damage to plaintiff, by the takihg of the right of way and construction of the railroad, including the value of the land taken, would not exceed -$400 or $500.
The evidence being closed, the court refused to instruct the jury, at the instance of the defendant:
1st. “The Mississippi river, opposite the State of Iowa, is a navigable stream, and the owner of lands adjoining the same has no private right or property in the waters of the river, or in the shore between high and low-water mark, but the ownership of so much of the shore as is situated between ordinary high and low water belongs -to the public, and is within the control of the State for public puiposes; and it is competent for the State to authorize the construction of a railroad along such shore between high and low-water mark, so as not to' interfere with the navigation of the stream; and, if the construction of such railroad necessarily cuts the adjoining owner off from all communication between his land and the river, otherwise than across such railroad, he is not entitled to compensation therefor.”
2d. “ If you believe from the evidence that the river edge of the right of way in question is located the whole length of plaintiff’s land upon the shore between ordinary high and low-water mark, and that plaintiff is thereby cut off from all communication with the river, otherwise than across such road, he is not entitled to recover damages therefor.” ,
The court gave a series of instructions embodying the doctrine that, while the riparian proprietor owns the fee only to high-water mark, yet if he be obstructed from free access to the river, by a high embankment of a railroad, between high and low-water marks, he would be entitled to the damages to his remaining land for ordinary use, by reason of such appropriation. The jury found for plaintiff the sum of $1,500.
Defendant appeals, and assigns as error the several rulings of the court upon the instructions. «
Shubaél P. Adam for the appellant.
W. Weighy <& Son for the appellee.

Opinion:
Day, Ch. J.
I. In the case of McManus v. Carmichael, 3 Iowa, 1, this court, after great research, extending to a review of all the cages both in the State and Federal courts, in a well-considered opinion, announced as the law of this State, that the Mississippi river is a legally navigable stream, and that the common-law consequences of navigability attach to such legal navigability.
This doctrine was followed in the subsequent case of Haight v. Keokuk, 4 Iowa, 199.
One of the common-law consequences of navigability, as fully shown by McManus v. Carmichael, is that the riparian proprietor owns the fee of the soil only to ordinary high-water mark, and that the proprietorship of the bed of the stream, below ordinary high water, is in the State for the use of the public. Appellee concedes that it is only upon a review of the former decisions of this court that he can expect a favorable result in this case, and hence we are asked to overrule McManus v. Carmichael, or at least to modify the holding so far as to extend the ownership of the riparian proprietor to low-water mark. A careful examination of this case, with the reasoning by which it is supported, convinces us that the conclusions there reached rest upon satisfactory and solid foundations, and induces us to adhere to it as a sound exposition of the interesting questions it involves.
II. This case does not involve the right of compensation for the land taken below ordinary high-water mark. The court instructed the jury that the plaintiff did not own the fee in such land, and could not ., , * . recover its value. lJie question is, can tlie plaintiff recover damages for being deprived of access to a navigable liver, by reason of the building of a railroad along its banks. In view of the concession of appellee, that a result favorable to him can be effected only through the overruling or modification of the cases before alluded to, we will content ourselves with a less elaborate consideration of this question than that which -its importance might otherwise render proper. The doctrine deducible from adjudged cases is, that by the rules of the common law the owner,of land along the shore of a navigable river is entitled to no right, either in its shores or waters, as an incident of his ownership, except the contingent ones of allmvion and dereUctum. Hence he is not entitled to damages, for an improvement made along the banks of such river, by the authority of the State, the effect of which is to deprive him of free access to the stream. This question was directly passed upon in the case of Gould v. Hudson River R. R. Co., 6 N. Y. 543, wbicb was an. action of trespass, to recover of tbe railroad company damages sustained by plaintiff in consequence of the construction of tbe railroad between bis farm and tbe channel of tbe Hudson river, between bigb and low-water mark. Tbe court. of appeals, affirming tbe decision of tbe supreme court, held: " That the owner of lands adjoining a navigable river in wbicb tbe tide ebbs and flows bas no private right or property in tbe waters of tbe river, or in tbe shore between bigb and low-water mark, and is therefore not entitled to compensation from a railroad company wbicb constructs, in pursuance of a grant from tbe legislature, a railroad along tbe shore, between bigb and low-water mark, so as to cut off all communication between such land and tbe river otherwise than across tbe road." And that, " whatever rights tbe owner of tbe land in such cases bas in tbe river, or in its shore below bigb-water mark, are public rights, wbicb are under tbe control-of tbe legislative power, and any loss sustained through the act of tbe legislature affecting them is damwwm absque injuria." In tbe recent well-considered case of Railroad v. Stevens, in tbe court of errors and appeals of New Jersey, in wbicb this question was involved, Beasly, C. J., announcing tbe opinion of tbe court, after a full review of tbe subject, uses this language : " Tbe result is, that there is no legal obstacle to a grant, by tbe legislature, to tbe defendants of that part of the property of tbe public, wbicb lies in front of tbe lands of plaintiff, and which is below bigb-water mark. It may be true that by such an appropriation tbe plaintiff will sustain a greater inconvenience than will other citizens whose land does not run along this river. But tbe injury to all is in its essence and character tbe same, tbe difference being only in degree. All persons who have occasion to approach this river over that part of tbe bank occupied by tbe railroad of tbe defendants may, perhaps, experience some incon venience from the interposition of snch works; the railroad, therefore, is somewhat of an impediment to the public rights of fishery and navigation. But no one, it is presumed, will pretend that such impediment is on that account illegal, if authorized by the legislative authority. Nor can the plaintiff complain because a difficult access to' the water is a greater hardship to him, owing to the easy use of the water in connection with his property in its natural condition, than it is to those who live at a distance from it." Am. Law Reg. for March, 1871, p. 166. These decisions settle the questions involved in this case, adversely to appellee, and in their conclusions we concur.
Reversed.