Case Name: COASTAL PETROLEUM COMPANY, Petitioner, v. AMERICAN CYANAMID COMPANY, et al., Respondents; BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND of the State of Florida, Petitioner, v. AMERICAN CYANAMID COMPANY, et al., Respondents; BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND of the State of Florida, Petitioner, v. MOBIL OIL CORPORATION, Respondent
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1986-05-15
Citations: 492 So. 2d 339
Docket Number: Nos. 65696, 65755 and 65913
Parties: COASTAL PETROLEUM COMPANY, Petitioner, v. AMERICAN CYANAMID COMPANY, et al., Respondents. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND of the State of Florida, Petitioner, v. AMERICAN CYANAMID COMPANY, et al., Respondents. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND of the State of Florida, Petitioner, v. MOBIL OIL CORPORATION, Respondent.
Judges: ADKINS, OVERTON and EHRLICH, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 492
Pages: 339–350

Head Matter:
COASTAL PETROLEUM COMPANY, Petitioner, v. AMERICAN CYANAMID COMPANY, et al., Respondents. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND of the State of Florida, Petitioner, v. AMERICAN CYANAMID COMPANY, et al., Respondents. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND of the State of Florida, Petitioner, v. MOBIL OIL CORPORATION, Respondent.
Nos. 65696, 65755 and 65913.
Supreme Court of Florida.
May 15, 1986.
Rehearing Denied May 30, 1986.
Robert J. Angerer, Tallahassee, C. Dean Reasoner of Reasoner, David and Fox, Washington, D.C., and Joseph C. Jacobs of Ervin, Varn, Jacobs, Odom and Kitchen, Tallahassee, for petitioner, Coastal Petroleum Co.
Julian Clarkson of Holland and Knight, Tallahassee, for respondents, American Cyanamid Co., Estech, Inc. and Mobil Oil Corp. in No. 65696.
Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, Robert J. Beckham of Beckham, McAliley and Schulz, Jacksonville, and Roberts, Miller, Baggett, LaFace, Richard & Wiser, Tallahassee, James R. Hubbard of the Law Offices of James R. Hubbard, and William C. Crenshaw of Valdes-Fauli, Cobb and Pe-trey, Miami, for petitioner, The Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund of the State of Florida.
Chesterfield Smith, Julian Clarkson and Hume F. Coleman of Holland and Knight, Tallahassee, for respondents, American Cyanamid Company, and Estech, Inc. in No. 65755 and for respondent Mobil Oil Corp. in No. 65913.
Robert J. Angerer, Tallahassee, C. Dean Reasoner of Reasoner, Davis and Fox, Washington, D.C., and Joseph C. Jacobs of Ervin, Yarn, Jacobs, Odom and Kitchen, Tallahassee, for amicus curiae, Coastal Petroleum Co.
Joseph W. Little, and Richard G. Ham-ann, Gainesville, for amicus curiae, The Florida Defenders Of The Environment.

Opinion:
SHAW, Justice.
These consolidated cases are before us on petitions to review decisions of the Second District Court of Appeal reported as Coastal Petroleum Co. v. American Cyanamid Co., 454 So.2d 6 (Fla. 2d DCA 1984), and Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund v. Mobil Oil Corp., 455 So.2d 412 (Fla. 2d DCA 1984), in which the following questions were certified as being of great public importance:
I. Do the 1883 swamp and overflowed lands deeds issued by the trustees include sovereignty lands below the ordinary high-water mark of navigable rivers?
II. Does the doctrine of legal estoppel or estoppel by deed apply to 1883 swamp and overflowed deeds barring the trustees' assertion of title to sovereignty lands?
III. Does the marketable record title act, chapter 712, Florida Statutes, operate to divest the trustees of title to sovereignty lands below the ordinary high-water mark of navigable rivers?
American Cyanamid Co., 454 So.2d 6, 9-10. We have jurisdiction pursuant to article V, section 3(b)(4), Florida Constitution, and answer all three questions in the negative.
In 1982 and 1983, respondents filed separate quiet title actions in Polk County Circuit Court against petitioners claiming fee simple title to portions of the beds of the Peace and Alafia rivers. In each case, petitioners moved to dismiss the suits to quiet title based on Mabie v. Garden Street Management Corp., 397 So.2d 920 (Fla.1981). The trial court denied the motions. Respondents then moved for summary judgments in their respective cases. The trial court granted said motions.
The Second District Court of Appeal affirmed the summary judgments in separate opinions filed on July 13, 1984. 454 So.2d 6; 455 So.2d 412. In American Cyanamid, the district court held that under section 197.228(2), Florida Statutes (1981), this state's unconditional conveyance of land to private individuals without reservation of public rights contemplated a finding that the land is not sovereignty land; that the Trustees were barred from asserting a sovereignty title claim by the doctrine of legal estoppel; and, that Florida's Marketable Record Title Act barred any otherwise valid sovereignty title claim. 454 So.2d at 8, 9. Recognizing, however, the significant impact of its decision on the riverbeds at issue, the district court certified to this Court the aforementioned three questions as being of great public importance. Id.
In Mobil Oil, the district court held that the Polk County Circuit Court did not err in denying petitioner Trustees' motion in the alternative because the Leon County Circuit Court lacked jurisdiction over the subject matter of respondent Mobil's reply counterclaim for the reason that the counterclaim is in rem in nature and local to Polk County Circuit Court. 455 So.2d at 416. The district court further noted that the substantive issues raised by petitioner Trustees were decided adversely to the Trustees in American Cyanamid. Id. By order of September 4, 1984, the district court certified to this Court the same three questions certified in American Cyanam-id.
The first certified question is premised on the uncontroverted legal proposition that Florida received title to all lands beneath navigable waters, up to the ordinary high water mark, as an incident of sovereignty, when it became a state in 1845. No patents or surveys were required to delineate the boundaries of such sovereignty lands and title vested in the state to be held as a public trust. Thereafter, the federal government did not hold title to such sovereignty lands and had no power to convey them to either the state or other parties. Moreover, any surveys run by the federal government establishing meander lines were not conclusive against the state' as the boundary lines between state sovereignty lands and federal uplands. Borax Consolidated Ltd. v. City of Los Angeles, 296 U.S. 10, 56 S.Ct. 23, 80 L.Ed. 9 (1935); Martin v. Busch, 93 Fla. 535, 112 So. 274 (1927).
In contrast to state sovereignty lands, the title to non-navigable swamp and overflowed lands, and other federal uplands, continued to reside in the federal government after 1845. However, in the 1850s, Congress exercised its power by conveying swamp and overflow uplands to the state. Surveys were conducted and patents issued whereby Florida received approximately twenty million acres of such lands. It is important to recognize that Congress had no intent or power to convey state sovereignty lands through such acts or patents and that land surveys conducted in connection with these conveyances of swamp and overflowed lands are not conclusive against the state as to the meandered boundaries of state sovereignty lands. See Borax Consolidated, Ltd., 296 U.S. at 16, 56 S.Ct. at 26, citing to and relying on Donnelly v. United States, 228 U.S. 243, 33 S.Ct. 449, 57 L.Ed. 820 (1913); Mobile Transportation Co. v. City of Mobile, 187 U.S. 479, 23 S.Ct. 170, 47 L.Ed. 266 (1903); Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 1, 14 S.Ct. 548, 38 L.Ed. 331 (1894); Goodtitle ex dem. Pollard v. Kibbe, 50 U.S. (9 How.) 471, 13 L.Ed. 220 (1850); and Pollard v. Hagan, 44 U.S. (3 How.) 212, 11 L.Ed. 565 (1845). The title to swamp and overflowed lands which Florida received in the 1850s and thereafter was vested in the Board of Trustees for the Internal Improvement Fund of Florida by the legislature. The title to sovereignty lands at this point remained in the legislature as a public trust. Illinois Central Railroad v. Illinois, 146 U.S. 387, 13 S.Ct. 110, 36 L.Ed. 1018 (1892); Broward v. Mabry, 58 Fla. 298, 50 So. 826 (1909); State v. Black River Phosphate Co., 32 Fla. 82, 13 So. 640 (1893). These lands differ from other state lands. Sovereignty lands are for public use, "not for the purpose of sale or conversion into other values, or reduction into several or individual ownership." State v. Gerbing, 56 Fla. 603, 608, 47 So. 353, 355 (1908). Even after title to sovereignty lands was subsequently assigned to the Trustees, their authority to dispose of the land was rigidly circumscribed by court decisions and was separate and distinct from their authority to dispose of swamp and overflowed lands. We answered the first certified question in the negative when we held in Martin, 93 Fla. at 573, 112 So. at 286-87 that:
The State Trustee defendants cannot, by allegation, averment or admission in pleadings or otherwise affect the legal status of or the State's title to sovereignty, swamp and overflowed or other lands held by the Trustees under different statutes for distinct and definite State purposes.... The subsequent vesting of title to sovereignty lands in the Trustees for State purposes under the Acts of 1919 or other statutes does not make the title to sovereignty land inure to claimants under a previous conveyance of swamp and overflowed lands by the State Trustees who then had no authority to convey such sovereignty lands and did not attempt or intend to convey sovereignty lands.
Further,
[i]f by mistake or otherwise sales or conveyances are made by the Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund of sovereignty lands, such as lands under navigable waters in the State or tide lands, or if such Trustees make sales and conveyances of State School lands, as and for swamp and overflowed lands, under the authority given such Trustees to convey swamp and overflowed lands, such sales and conveyances are ineffectual for lack of authority from the state.
Id. at 569,112 So. at 285 (citations omitted).
The court below relied in part on the provisions of section 197.228(2), Florida Statutes (1981), which provides:
(2) Navigable waters in this state shall not be held to extend to any permanent or transient waters in the form of so-called lakes, ponds, swamps or overflowed lands, lying over and upon areas which have heretofore been conveyed to private individuals by the United States or by the state without reservation of public rights in and to said waters.
We do not agree that this section is pertinent to the issues at hand. We are dealing with navigable rivers not "so-called lakes, ponds, swamps, or overflowed lands." We are not persuaded that the legislature intended by this statute to divest the state of title to navigable waters which were not, or could not be, conveyed to private owners. To accept this position would mean, inter alia, that if a navigable river gradually and imperceptively changed its course onto previously conveyed lands, the navigable river would become private property and the public would retain the dry river bed. The high and low water marks of navigable waters change over time, but these natural changes do not divest the public of ownership of the navigable waters. Bonelli Cattle Co. v. Arizona, 414 U.S. 313, 94 S.Ct. 517, 38 L.Ed.2d 526 (1973); Municipal Liquidators, Inc. v. Tench, 153 So.2d 728 (Fla.2d DCA), cert. denied, 157 So.2d 817 (Fla.1963).
The second certified question pertains to the effect of the Trustees' later acquisition of legal title to sovereignty lands encompassed within previously conveyed swamp and overflowed lands. This question was also addressed and answered in Martin, as the quotations above show. Not only is there no legal estoppel to the Trustees' claim of ownership in sovereignty lands, but the Trustees are prohibited by case law from surrendering state title to sovereignty lands based on a prior conveyance of swamp and overflowed lands. Sovereignty lands cannot be conveyed without clear intent and authority, and conveyances, where authorized and intended, must retain public use of the waters. Martin, Mabry. The fact that a deed of swamp and overflowed lands does not explicitly exempt sovereignty lands from the conveyance does not show that the Trustees intended to convey sovereignty lands encompassed within the swamp and overflowed lands being conveyed. Further, because grantees of swamp and overflowed lands took with notice that such grants did not convey sovereignty lands, neither they nor their successors have any moral or legal claim to these lands. Martin, 93 Fla. at 569-73, 112 So. at 285-87.
The final certified question is whether the Marketable Record Title Act (MRTA), chapter 712, Florida Statutes, op erates to divest the state of title to sovereignty lands. Respondents and the courts below rely on Odom v. Deltona Corp., 341 So.2d 977 (Fla.1976), for the proposition that the state's title to navigable water beds previously conveyed as swamp and overflowed lands is extinguished by MRTA. This reliance is misplaced. In Odom we rejected the state's argument that the notice of navigability concept applied to the grantees of swamp and overflowed lands under certain trustees' deeds because "it seems absurd to apply this test to small, non-meandered lakes and ponds of less than 140 acres and, in many cases, less than 50 acres in surface." Id. at 988. The ground on which Odom rests is this factual determination that the small lakes and ponds at issue were non-navigable, non-sovereignty lands. Unfortunately, even though this factual determination controlled and resolved the case, we went on to answer irrelevant arguments put to us by the parties and in answering one such argument concluded that MRTA was applicable to sovereignty lands encompassed within conveyances of swamp and overflowed lands and that the claims of trustees "to beds underlying navigable waters previously conveyed are extinguished by the Act." Id. at 989. The statements concerning the effect of MRTA on navigable waterbeds were dicta and are non-binding in the instant case inasmuch as there were no navigable waterbeds at issue in Odom. See Askew v. Sonson, 409 So.2d 7 (Fla.1981), where we requested and received briefs on the effect of MRTA on sovereignty lands. On reflection, and citing Odom, we declined to rule "on the question of whether a private owner's title to what had been sovereignty lands could be perfected by MRTA prior to the effective date of the 1978 amendment." Id. at 9. See also City of Miami v. St. Joe Paper Co., 364 So.2d 439, 445, 449 (Fla.1978), appeal dismissed, 441 U.S. 939, 99 S.Ct. 2153, 60 L.Ed.2d 1040 (1979).
The issue of whether MRTA is applicable to sovereignty lands is squarely presented here. The issue has two prongs. The first is whether the legislature intended to overturn the well-established law that prior conveyances to private interests did not convey sovereignty lands encompassed within swamp and overflowed lands being conveyed. We must assume that the legislature knew this well-established law when it enacted MRTA. We are persuaded that had the legislature intended to revoke the public trust doctrine by making MRTA applicable to sovereignty lands, it would have, by special reference to sovereignty lands, given some indication that it recognized the epochal nature of such revocation. We see nothing in the act itself or the legislative history presented to us suggesting that the legislature intended to casually dispose of irreplaceable public assets. The legislative purpose of simplifying and facilitating land title transactions does not require that the title to navigable waters be vested in private interests. Because we conclude that the legislature did not intend to make MRTA applicable to sovereignty lands, we do not address the second prong of whether the legislature could constitutionally make such an ex post facto divestment of sovereignty lands without explicitly basing it on the public interest. We note, however, although article X, section 11 of the Florida Constitution was adopted after the passage of MRTA, that section 11 is largely a constitutional codification of the public trust doctrine contained in our case law.
Finally, we agree with the district court in Mobil Oil that respondent Mobil's counterclaim was in rem in nature and local only to Polk County Circuit Court.
In summary, we hold that conveyances of swamp and overflowed lands do not convey sovereignty lands encompassed therein, that such conveyances without exemption of sovereignty lands do not legally estop the state from asserting title to sovereignty lands, and that MRTA, as originally enacted and subsequently amended in 1978, is not applicable to sovereignty lands.
We approve the portion of Mobil Oil holding that jurisdiction rested in Polk County and quash the remainder. We quash entirely Coastal Petroleum v. American Cyanamid. The cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
ADKINS, OVERTON and EHRLICH, JJ., concur.
BOYD, C.J., dissents with an opinion, in which McDONALD, J., concurs in part and dissents in part with an opinion.
. A meander line creates a rebuttable presumption of navigability but is not necessarily a boundary line unless it is expressly made one of the calls of the boundary. However,
where a meander line is run under State authority for the purpose of identifying, locating and establishing the true line of ordinary high water mark of a body of navigable water, and the lands below high water mark are sovereignty lands, and the lands above high water mark are swamp and overflowed lands or other uplands subject to ordinary private ownership, in such case the meander line, if so intended and if duly and fairly ascertained and established, becomes, and, unless duly impeached, continues to be, a boundary line limiting the extent of conveyances of the adjacent uplands or of permissible grants or conveyances of the sovereignty lands below ordinary high water mark.
Martin v. Busch, 93 Fla. at 565, 112 So. at 284.
. See discussion and cases cited in Comment, Unfinished Business — Protecting Public Rights to State Lands From Being Lost Under Florida's Marketable Record Title Act, 13 Fla.St.U.L.Rev. 599, 606-08 (1985).