Opinion ID: 2829230
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Texas Recognizes Rolling Easements

Text: The first certified question asks whether Texas recognizes rolling beachfront access easements that move with the natural boundaries by which they are defined. The answer is yes. The rolling easement “is not a novel idea.” Feinman , 717 S.W.2d at 110 . Courts consistently recognize the migrating boundaries of easements abutting waterways to uphold their purpose. 1 2 Id . After all, “an easement is not so inflexible that it cannot accommodate changes in the terrain it covers.” Id . The law of easements, Texas law, and public policy support the enforcement of rolling easements. Such easements follow the movement of the dry beach in order to maintain their purpose and are defined by such purpose rather than geographic location. They are therefore affected by changes to the coast but never rendered ineffective by the change. The primary objective is not to ensure the easement’s boundaries are fixed but rather that its purpose is never defeated.
An easement is a non-possessory property interest that authorizes its holder to use the property of another for a particular purpose. Marcus Cable Assocs. v. Krohn , 90 S.W.3d 697, 700 (Tex. 2002). “A grant or reservation of an easement in general terms implies a grant of unlimited reasonable use such as is reasonably necessary and convenient and as little burdensome as possible to the servient owner.” Coleman v. Forister , 514 S.W.2d 899, 903 (Tex. 1974). However, the burden on the servient estate is secondary to ensuring that the purpose of the easement is reasonably fulfilled. For example, oil and gas leases convey an implied easement to use the surface as reasonably necessary to fulfill the purpose of the lease. See Sun Oil Co. v. Whitaker , 483 S.W.2d 808, 810 (Tex. 1972) (recognizing that the use easement is not limited by fixed boundaries but rather its purpose and use). The purpose of the easement cannot expand, but under certain circumstances, the geographic location of the easement may. Compare Marcus Cable Assocs. , 90 S.W.3d at 701 (preventing easement holder from expanding purpose of maintaining electric transmission or distribution line to also include cable-television lines regardless of fact that lines could be run on exact same geographic location) with Godfrey v. City of Alton , 12 Ill. 29, (1850) (recognizing that a public easement for a public landing on specific waterway is necessarily “inseparable from the margin of the water, however that may fluctuate”). Easements may be express or implied. Implied easements are defined by the circumstances that create the implication. Ulbricht v. Friedman , 325 S.W.2d 669, 677 (Tex. 1959) (finding an implied easement to use lake water for cattle as they were located upland and without any water source). Express easements, however, must comply with the Statute of Frauds, which requires a description of the easement’s location. Pick v. Bartel , 659 S.W.2d 636, 637 (Tex. 1983). Under certain circumstances, even express easement boundaries may be altered to maintain the purpose of the easement. See Kothmann v. Rothwell , 280 S.W.3d 877, 880 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2009, no pet.) (recognizing movement of drainage tracts to maintain easement’s purpose despite the expansion of original easement location); see also Restatement (Third) of Property (Servitudes) § 4.1 (2000) (providing that an easement “should be interpreted to give effect to the intention of the parties ascertained from the language used in the instrument, or the circumstances surrounding the creation of the servitude, and to carry out the purpose for which it was created”). Rolling beachfront access easements are implied by prescription or continuous use of the dry beach and are defined by their purpose and their dynamic, non-static natural boundaries. To apply static real property concepts to beachfront easements is to presume their destruction. Hurricanes and tropical storms frequently batter Texas’s coast. Avulsive events are not uncommon. The Court’s failure to recognize the rolling easement places a costly and unnecessary burden on the state if it is to preserve our heritage of open beaches. The Court’s conclusion that beachfront easements are dynamic but do not roll defies not only existing law but logic as well. The definition of “roll” is “to impel forward by causing to turn over and over on a surface.” Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (Merriam-Webster Inc. 1983). “Dynamic” means “of or relating to physical force or energy” and “marked by continuous activity or change.” Id . Both terms express movement, but neither term is limited by speed or degree of movement. The Court also illogically distinguishes between shoreline movements by accretion and avulsion. On the one hand, the Court correctly declines to apply the avulsion doctrine to the mean high tide. ___ S.W.3d ___. This means a property owner loses title to land if, after a hurricane or tropical storm, such land falls seaward of the mean high tide. On the other hand, this same hurricane, under the Court’s analysis, requires the state to compensate a property owner for the land that now falls seaward of the vegetation line unless it was already a part of the public beachfront easement. Under the Court’s analysis, the property line may be dynamic but beachfront easements must always remain temporary; the public’s right to the beach can never be established and will never be secure. 1 3 The Court’s distinctions nullify the purpose of rolling easements. I submit (in accord with several other Texas appellate courts that have addressed the issue of rolling easements) that natural movements of the mean high tide and vegetation line, sudden or gradual, re-establish the dynamic boundaries separating public and private ownership of the beach, as well as a pre-existing public beachfront access easement. So long as an easement was established over the dry beach before the avulsive event, it must remain over the new dry beach without the burden of having to re-establish a previously existing easement whose boundaries have naturally shifted. Finally, I submit that once an easement is established, it attaches to the entire tract. Drye v. Eagle Rock Ranch, Inc. , 364 S.W.2d 196, 207 (Tex. 1963). Regardless of how many times the original tract is subdivided, the easement remains. Id . (enforcing pre-existing implied easement across subsequently divided tracts to fulfill its purpose). Private ownership of Galveston Island originated in two land grants issued by the Republic of Texas. First, it arose from the Menard Grant in 1838, which covers the east end of the Island. See Seaway Co. , 375 S.W.2d at 928; City of Galveston v. Menard , 23 Tex. 349, 403–04 (1859). Second, it issued from the Jones and Hall Grant in 1840, which encompasses 18,215 acres, and includes the West Beach, where Severance’s property is located. See Seaway Co. , 375 S.W.2d at 928 (covering “all of Galveston Island except the land covered by the Menard Grant covering the east portion of the Island”). The Court today reasons that because no express easement was made in these original land grants, no public easement can exist over the dry beach. ___ S.W.3d ___. The Court, however, ignores the implied easement arising from the public’s continuous use of the beach for nearly 200 years. The state may have relinquished title in these original grants, but it did not relinquish the public’s right to access, use, and enjoy the beach. See Ratliff, 13 Hous. L. Rev . at 994 (recognizing that until Luttes the public, as well as private landowners, believed beaches to be public domain). By implied prescription, implied dedication, or customary and continuous use, overwhelming evidence exists that Texans have been using the beach for nearly 200 years. See Seaway Co. , 375 S.W.2d at 936 (finding that “owners, beginning with the original ones, have thrown open the beach to public use and it has remained open”); see also supra n. 1. This evidence establishes that public beachfront access easements have been implied across this Texas coastline since statehood. As long as a dry beach exists, so too must beachfront access easements. Any other result deprives the public of its pre-existing, dominant right to unrestricted use and enjoyment of the public beach.
The Court states it is “unaware of any case law permitting such an expansive interpretation of easement rights that would so unduly burden the underlying servient estate.” ___ S.W.3d ___ (requiring easements to be re-established over new dry beach after each avulsive event). I submit that Texas case law not only recognizes the existence of public beachfront access easements but further that they “roll” with the movements of their dynamic, natural boundaries. 1 4 Before Luttes , the public assumed it had unrestricted access to use and enjoy the beach. 1 5 After Luttes , in response to public concern over its right to access Texas beaches, the Texas Legislature passed the OBA to ensure that Texas beaches remained open for public use. Challenged five years later, the Houston Court of Civil Appeals found that a public easement existed on the West Beach of Galveston Island, forcing landowners to remove barriers and structures that prevented the public’s access to and use of the public beach. Seaway Co. v. Attorney General , 375 S.W.2d at 940 ; see also Moody v. White , 593 S.W.2d 372, 376-79 (finding public easement over dry beach on Mustang Island and requiring removal of structure preventing public access). In the years following the passage of the OBA, the shoreline naturally and predictably moved both gradually and suddenly. Texas courts have repeatedly held that once an easement is established, it expands or contracts (“rolls”), despite the sudden shift of the vegetation line. See Feinman , 717 S.W.2d at 109–10 (after Hurricane Alicia); Arrington v. Tex. Gen. Land Office , 38 S.W.3d at 765 (after Tropical Storm Frances); Brannan v. State , No. 01-08-00179-CV, 2010 WL 375921,  (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Feb. 4, 2010, pet. filed ) (after unusually high tide or “bull tide”); Matcha , 711 S.W.2d at 100 (after hurricane of 1983); Arrington v. Mattox , 767 S.W.2d at 958 (after Hurricane Alicia). In short, Texas law has adopted “the rolling easement concept.” Feinman , 717 S.W.2d at 110–11 . The Court’s refusal to follow existing Texas law means that every hurricane season will bring new burdens not only on the public’s ability to access Texas’s beaches but on the public treasury as well.
The OBA codifies the public’s pre-existing right of open access to Texas beaches: It is declared and affirmed to be the public policy of this state that the public, individually and collectively, shall have the free and unrestricted right of ingress and egress to and from the state-owned beaches bordering on the seaward shore of the Gulf of Mexico, or if the public has acquired a right of use or easement to or over an area by prescription, dedication, or has retained a right by virtue of continuous right in the public, the public shall have the free and unrestricted right of ingress and egress to the larger area extending from the line of mean low tide to the line of vegetation bordering on the Gulf of Mexico . Tex. Nat. Res. Code § 61.011(a) (emphasis added). Migratory boundaries define rolling easements, rather than fixed points. The line of vegetation is “the extreme seaward boundary of natural vegetation which spreads continuously inland.” Tex. Nat. Res. Code § 61.001(5) (emphasis added). Public beach means any beach area, whether publicly or privately owned, extending inland from the line of mean low tide to the line of vegetation bordering on the Gulf of Mexico to which the public has acquired the right of use or easement to or over the area by prescription, dedication, presumption, or has retained by virtue of continuous right in the public since time immemorial, as recognized in law and custom. Tex. Nat. Res. Code § 61.001(8). The OBA recognizes the dynamic nature of beach boundaries by defining the public beach by reference to the vegetation line and tide lines, which shift with the movements of the ocean, whether those movements are gradual from erosion or dramatic from storm events. Requiring that existing easements be re-established after every hurricane season defeats the purpose of the OBA: to maintain public beach access.
For almost twenty-five years, the state has taken the further step of informing beachfront property purchasers of the rolling nature of the easement burdening their property. Amendments to the OBA in 1985 make “pellucid that once an easement on the dry beach is established, its landward boundary may therefore ‘roll,’ including over private property ”. Severance v. Patterson , 566 F.3d 490, 506 (5th Cir. 2009) (Wiener, J., dissenting) (emphasis in original); see also Act of May 24, 1985, 69th Leg., R.S., ch . 350, § 1, 1985 Tex. Gen. Laws 1419 (codified as Tex. Nat. Res. Code § 61.025). Sellers of property on or near the coastline are required to include in the sales contract a “Disclosure Notice Concerning Legal and Economic Risks of Purchasing Coastal Real Property Near a Beach.” Tex. Nat. Res. Code § 61.025(a). The notice specifically warns that If you own a structure located on coastal real property near a gulf coast beach, it may come to be located on the public beach because of coastal erosion and storm events. ... Owners of structures erected seaward of the vegetation line (or other applicable easement boundary) or that become seaward of the vegetation line as a result of natural processes such as shoreline erosion are subject to a lawsuit by the State of Texas to remove the structures. Tex. Nat. Res. Code § 61.025 (a) (emphasis added). The language of the Act itself clearly identifies the line of vegetation as an easement boundary and clearly recognizes the transient nature of these boundary lines. The vegetation line, “given the vagaries of nature, will always be in a state of intermittent flux[ ,]” and consequently, “[s] hifts in the vegetation line do not create new easements; rather they expand (or in the case of seaward shifts, reduce) the size and reach of one dynamic easement.” Severance v. Patterson , 566 F.3d 490, 506 (5th Cir. 2009) (Wiener, J., dissenting). Severance purchased her properties with contracts that notified her of these risks and nature of the rolling easement.
In November 2009, Texans adopted a constitutional amendment that mirrors the policy and language of the OBA. The amendment adopts the OBA’s definition of “public beach” and reiterates that the public’s easement is established under Texas common law. Tex. Const. art. I, § 33(a). It further acknowledges the permanent nature of the easement. Id . at § 33(b). To be consistent with the Texas Constitution, these easements must roll with the natural changes of the beach. The Court’s failure to recognize the rolling nature of these easements is thus not only contrary to common law and the public policy of the state but also the will of the people expressed in our constitution.
Finally, in an OBA enforcement action, there is a presumption that the public has acquired an easement over the dry beach, and a landowner like Severance may present evidence to rebut the presumption. See Tex. Nat. Res. Code § 61.020. The “title of the littoral owner does not include the right to prevent the public from using the area for ingress and egress to the sea[ ,]” and “there is imposed on the area [from mean low tide to the line of vegetation] a common law right or easement in favor of the public for ingress and egress to the sea.” Id. Once a public beach easement is established, it is implied that the easement moves up or back to each new vegetation line, and the state is not required to repeatedly re-establish that an easement exists up to that new vegetation line. See Arrington v. Tex. Gen. Land Office , 38 S.W.3d at 766 .