Case Name: M. L. WILSON and Gertrude Wilson v. ST. REGIS PULP & PAPER CORPORATION
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1970-05-25
Citations: 240 So. 2d 137
Docket Number: No. 45785
Parties: M. L. WILSON and Gertrude Wilson v. ST. REGIS PULP & PAPER CORPORATION.
Judges: ETHRIDGE, C. J., and RODGERS, BRADY and ROBERTSON, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 240
Pages: 137–144

Head Matter:
M. L. WILSON and Gertrude Wilson v. ST. REGIS PULP & PAPER CORPORATION.
No. 45785.
Supreme Court of Mississippi.
May 25, 1970.
Rehearing Denied Oct. 19, 1970.
Jones & Patterson, Brookhaven, for appellants.
Simrall, Aultman & Pope, Hattiesburg, J. P. Patterson, Monticello, for appellee.

Opinion:
INZER, Justice.
This case involves a riparian boundary dispute between appellants, Mr. M. L. Wilson and Mrs. Gertrude Wilson, and appel-lee, St. Regis Pulp & Paper Corporation. Appellee filed a bill of complaint in the Chancery Court of Lawrence County seeking to confirm its title to the land in dispute. Appellants answered and denied that appellee owned the land in dispute and filed a cross bill seeking damages for the removal by appellee of sand and gravel from the land. We affirm.
The Pearl River is the boundary line between a tract of land owned by appellants and a tract of land owned by appellee. Appellants' land lies west of the river and ap-pellee's land lies east of the river. During the years a sand bar built up in the river. It extended from the east bank of the river out into the river. During the year 1966 appellee removed a considerable quantity of sand and gravel from the sand bar which it used in the construction of its plant in Lawrence County. Appellants demanded damages, contending that a part of the sand and gravel was removed from their property. Strange as it may seem, both parties agree that the thread of the stream of Pearl River is the dividing line between their properties. Appellants contend that the thread of the stream means the line midway between the opposite shore lines when the water is at its ordinary stage, neither swollen by freshets nor sunken by droughts, with no account being taken of the main channel, current or line of greatest depth. On the other hand, appellee contends, and the chancellor found, that the thread of the stream is the center of the stream being the thalweg or deepest portion of the channel;
Appellants concede that if the chancellor was correct in holding that the dividing line between their land and the land of the appellee is the thread of the current or the thalweg, then all the sand and gravel removed was removed from appellee's property.
The chancellor in reaching his conclusion evidently relied upon our holding in Robinson v. Humble Oil & Refining Co., 253 Miss. 602, 176 So.2d 307 (1965), wherein we held that where a stream is the boundary between properties this boundary shifts with the gradual vagrancies and changes of the stream. In so holding we quoted with approval Anderson-Tully Co. v. Tingle, 166 F.2d 224 (5th Cir. 1948). There the Court said:
The law stated as conclusions (1) and (2) is unquestionably correct. While controversies between States as to their boundaries are within the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and are to be settled by it, so that private land titles cannot ignore the boundary so established, State of Arkansas v. State of Tennessee, 246 U.S. 158, 38 S.Ct. 301, 62 L.Ed. 638, L.R.A.1918D, 258, there has never been any difference of view between the Supreme Court of the United States and that of Mississippi, that the thread of the stream or the thalweg is to be recognized. Hill City Compress Co. v. West Kentucky Coal Co., 155 Miss. 55, 122 So. 747. The doctrine of State of Arkansas v. State of Tennessee as to change of boundary by slow, non-avulsive changes in the thalweg is also the law of Mississippi. See cases below. There is nothing in this case to prevent the ordinary application of Mississippi law to these private owners of Mississippi land.
The law of Mississippi as to boundaries by freshwater streams above the ebb and flow of the tides is the common law, regardless of the size and actual navigability of the streams; and that law is that the owners of the land own to the thread of the current of the stream, assumed in the absence of other proof to be the center line of the stream; but that the boundary shifts with gradual non-avulsive changes in the stream, so that an owner may lose or gain an indefinite area thereby. The underwater private ownership is of course subject to the public right of navigation. Morgan and Harrison v. Reading, 1844, 3 Smedes & M. 366; Steamboat Magnolia v. Marshall, 39 Miss. 109; Wineman v. Withers, 143 Miss. 537, 108 So. 708; United States Gypsum Co. v. Reynolds, 196 Miss. 644, 18 So.2d 448. See also our decisions touching the Mississippi law in Cox v. Phillips, 5 Cir., 277 F. 414, and Iselin v. La Coste, 5 Cir., 139 F.2d 887.
Appellants admit that the rule announced in Anderson-Tully, supra, is the applicable rule in this state where the stream is the dividing line between states, but contend that the court was in error in holding that it was the law of this state relative to fresh water streams above the ebb and flow of the tide which lie wholly within the boundaries of this state. We have carefully considered their argument and the cases cited in support thereof, but we think that our holding in Robinson v. Humble Oil Co., supra, is contrary to this contention and is decisive of this question.
The evidence in this case supports the finding of the chancellor as to the location of the thalweg or the deepest part of the channel, and for this reason we are of the opinion that this case should be affirmed.
Affirmed.
ETHRIDGE, C. J., and RODGERS, BRADY and ROBERTSON, JJ., concur.
RODGERS, Justice.