Opinion ID: 1747260
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Contact is Ancillary to the Littoral Right of Access

Text: The First District concluded that, under section 161.191(1), upland owners lose the right to have the property's contact with the water remain intact. Save Our Beaches, 31 Fla. L. Weekly at D1177, ___ So.2d at ____. However, under Florida common law, there is no independent right of contact with the water. Instead, contact is ancillary to the littoral right of access to the water. The ancillary right to contact with the water exists to preserve the upland owner's core littoral right of access to the water. See Sand Key, 512 So.2d at 936 (stating that littoral property rights include the right of access to the water, including the right to have the property's contact with the water remain intact); see also Farnham, supra, § 62 (The riparian owner is also entitled to have his contact with the water remain intact. This is what is known as the right of access.). We have never addressed whether littoral rights are unconstitutionally taken based solely upon the loss of an upland owner's direct contact with the water. But we have held that littoral rights are unconstitutionally taken when sovereignty lands are used in a way that deprives the upland owner of the right of access to the water. See Thiesen, 78 So. at 501 (finding that legislation allowing railway on sovereignty submerged lands unconstitutionally deprived upland owner of ingress and egress, i.e., access to the water, without just compensation); see also Webb, 82 So.2d 743 (finding that fill across small arm of lake constituted an infringement of upland owner's littoral right to access main part of lake); Ferry Pass, 48 So. at 646 (stating that the use of a river that deprived riparian owner of access to the water may be enjoined). In this case, the Act expressly protects the right of access to the water, which is the sole justification for the subsidiary right of contact. The Act preserves the rights of ingress and egress and prevents the State from erecting structures upon the beach seaward of the ECL except as required to prevent erosion. See § 161.201. The Act also provides that the State has no intention to extend its claims to lands not already held by it or to deprive any upland or submerged land owner of the legitimate and constitutional use and enjoyment of his or her property. § 161.141. At least facially, these provisions ensure that the upland owner's access to the water remains intact. Therefore, the rationale for the ancillary right to contact is satisfied. Furthermore, it is important to understand that contrary to what might be inferred from the First District's conclusion regarding contact, there is no littoral right to a seaward boundary at the water's edge in Florida. Rather, as explained previously, the boundary between sovereignty lands and private uplands is the MHWL, which represents an average over a nineteen-year period. Although the foreshore technically separates upland property from the water's edge at various times during the nineteen-year period, it has never been considered to infringe upon the upland owner's littoral right of access, which the ancillary right to contact is meant to preserve. Admittedly, the renourished beach may be wider than the typical foreshore, but the ultimate result is the same. [16] Direct access to the water is preserved under the Act. In other words, because the Act safeguards access to the water and because there is no right to maintain a constant boundary with the water's edge, the Act, on its face, does not unconstitutionally eliminate the ancillary right to contact. Lastly, we briefly explain our disagreement with the First District's use of Belvedere to discount the Act's express preservation of littoral rights in section 161.201.