Case Name: VROOM v. TILLY et al.
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1904-12-15
Citations: 91 N.Y.S. 51
Docket Number: 
Parties: VROOM v. TILLY et al.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 91
Pages: 51–57

Head Matter:
(99 App. Div. 516)
VROOM v. TILLY et al.
(Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department
December 15, 1904.)
1. Fish—Oyster Beds—Ownership.
The ownership of the land whereon oysters are deposited is not a prerequisite to the ownership of the oysters, and the fact that a person is guilty of trespass in planting and cultivating oysters on the lands of another does not authorize the owner to take the oysters to his own use, though the owner might compel him to take them up or remove them as a nuisance.
Woodward, J., dissenting.
f 1. See Fish, vol. 23, Cent. Dig. §§ 12, 15.
Appeal from Special Term, Suffolk County.
Action by Charles H. Vroom against John Tilly and another for conversion. From a judgment in favor of plaintiff, defendants appeal.
Affirmed.
Argued before HIRSCHBERG, P. J., and BARTLETT, WOODWARD, JENKS, and HOOKER, JJ.
Henry J. McCormick, for appellants.
S. Leroy Aclcerly, for respondent.

Opinion:
JENKS, J.
The plaintiff cultivated oysters on 40 acres of land under the waters of Long Island Sound, upon the supposition that the tract was within the bounds of lands granted to his licensors for such pursuit by the state. For six years he took out a large quantity of oysters. The defendants had acquired from the state a similar franchise in lands adjacent to those of the plaintiff. . As matter of fact, the said 40 acres were within the bounds of the defendants' lands, although there was no indication thereof. This fact was ascertained by an official survey obtained by the defendants six years after the plaintiff had begun cultivation. Thereupon, in the face of the plaintiff's protest and explanation, the defendants took up for their own use the oysters from this tract. This action is for a conversion of those oysters, and the plaintiff has gained the judgment. The court found that the oysters taken up by the defendants were the result of the plaintiff's cultivation, and I think that the evidence justifies this finding.
The learned counsel for the appellants concedes that "the rule governing ownership of oysters wrongfully planted or placed on the lands under water belonging to another is that a man does not lose title to personal property which can be identified by the fact that he is a trespasser"; but he insists that there is a distinction betw.een the case of a man planting or placing oysters on such lands, and a man who, like the plaintiff, simply prepares such land, and, as the result of such preparation, gathers the germs floating in the water, which under his care and culture develop into oysters. I think, however, that these oysters were the property of the plaintiff. Grace v. Willets, 50 N. J. Law, 414, 14 Atl. 559; McCarty v. Holman, 22 Hun, 53. In Grace v. Willets, supra, the plaintiffs deposited a boat load of oyster shells, and marked the deposits by stakes, and the germs of oysters, floating in the water, attached themselves to the shells. The court, per Van Syckel, J., say:
"Assuming, as we must, from the case as presented, that it was necessary to deposit the natural shell in order to attract the germ or sprout, and thereby in the order of natural growth produce the oyster, it seems as incontrovertibly to follow that the full-grown oyster is the property of him who planted the shell, as that the oyster when of marketable size belongs to him who planted it in its infant state, or as that the title to the colt is not lost by its growth and development into the horse."
In McCarty v. Holman, supra, the plaintiffs planted both seed oysters and many scallop shells. Gilbert, J., speaking of the spat, said:
"They are wafted away by currents, and would be lost unless they found an object to which they could adhere. The plaintiffs provided means within the bed which they planted to save the spat of oysters, and we are of opinion that their property in the oysters grown from' the spat so preserved is quite as good as that in the parent oysters, whether the spat proceeded from oysters which they planted or from other oysters."
Ownership of the land whereon the oysters are deposited is not a prerequisite to ownership in the oysters. Davis v. Davis, 72 App. Div. 593, 76 N. Y. Supp. 539; McCarty v. Holman, supra; Fleet v. Hegeman, 14 Wend. 42; State v. Taylor, 27 N. J. Law, 117, 72 Am. Dec. 347; Post v. Kreischer, 103 N. Y. 110, 8 N. E. 365. If the plaintiff were guilty of trespass in planting or cultivating oysters on the lands of another, such fact does not authorize the owner to take those oysters to his own use (Davis v. Davis, supra), although the owner might compel him to take them up, or might remove them as a nuisance (State v. Taylor, supra; Sutter v. Van Derveer, 47 Hun, 366). Oysters reproduce by eggs, from which there hatches out a small, free-swimming larva, becoming in a few days spat. These seek and attach themselves to some solid support, where they remain. Encyclopedia Americana. The property right in such oysters has been said to be akin to that gained over animals ferae naturae (McCarty v. Holman, supra; Fleet v. Hegeman, supra), though this principle has been sharply criticised by the Supreme Court of New Jersey in State v. Taylor, supra. If we regard them as ferae natura, then the plaintiff has reclaimed them so far as is possible to such animals, in that he has caught them and confined them; and therefore the defendants cannot thereafter appropriate them, even though they are upon their lands. This question is Well discussed by Nelson, J., in Fleet v. Hegeman, supra.
The judgment should be affirmed, with costs.
HIRSCHBERG, P. J., and BARTLETT and HOOKER, JJ., concur.