Opinion ID: 2404170
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Hall v. Nascimento

Text: Hall v. Nascimento, 594 A.2d 874 (R.I. 1991) is one of the few instances in which this court has had the opportunity to resolve a conflict between public rights and private rights in filled land along the shore. In Hall we decided a title dispute concerning land on Common Fence Point in Portsmouth. The basic issue involved title to 10 feet of former beach area that abutted 260 feet of contiguous land created by the placing of fill from the shore line out into Mount Hope Bay. This land was primarily created by fill from the dredging of Mount Hope Bay in 1948 by the Army Corps of Engineers. The state granted permission for the fill to be placed along the shore to a width of 50 feet as set forth in the written permits. The area actually filled, however, extended 260 feet away from the original shore, which created a 270-foot deep area of new shoreline. In Hall we held that the trial justice erred in awarding title of a portion of the 270-foot area to an adjacent lot owner. We reasoned that any such claim must be based on littoral rights to the tidal lands that were filled. Id. at 876. Because the lot owner's predecessors in title never abutted the former high-water mark, the present lot owner could not claim any littoral rights. Id. The Hall decision has generated an uneasiness in landowners by casting into doubt the title status of numerous private properties throughout this state that are composed wholly or in part of filled tidal land. Following our holding in Hall, some state agencies took the position that the State of Rhode Island holds title to all filled tidal lands in trust for the public under the public-trust doctrine. Let us state now, unequivocally, that Hall has no application to the situation of the Cove Lands in this case or to the gas company's or the electric company's properties landward of the Harbor Lines. Hall involved filling in an area with no harbor line and no legislative authorization. Although there was a permit from the Rhode Island Department of Public Works, Division of Harbors and Rivers, the actual filling was more than five times as extensive as that authorized by the permit. This court continues to support the opinion rendered in Hall. It was correct at the time it was made and it is still appropriate. Hall does not hold that if there is no valid legislative state grant, public-trust rights exist in land filled to a harbor line. The decision only acknowledges that the state may grant property free of the public-trust doctrine, but there was no evidence of such a grant in that record of that case. It was determined in Hall that the plaintiffs did not hold title to the ten-foot beach area or the filled area adjacent to it either by deed or by adverse possession. The filled land in Hall was never developed for commerce or built upon. Rather it was dedicated to public open space by a neighborhood association. Having established the ownership status of the state in regard to the land in question, this court concluded that the trial justice erred in granting the plaintiffs title by adverse possession because a private party cannot adversely possess public property. The gas-company parcel involved filling of the property to a harbor line with the express approval of the state. The electric-company parcel involved filling of the property to a harbor line with the tacit or implied approval of the state. The two Harbor Line parcels have been substantially improved upon for many years. We hold that these factors establish that the fee-simple absolute title rests in the title holders, the electric company and the gas company, subject, of course, to any encumbrances that the title holders may have placed on the land themselves. In our analysis regarding the title to these Harbor Line parcels, we have read with interest the dicta in several late-nineteenth-century opinions of this court. In Engs v. Peckham, 11 R.I. 210 (1875), this court stated, in its judgment, that the filling of land to a harbor line excluded the public-trust rights in such property. In Allen v. Allen, 19 R.I. 114, 32 A. 166 (1895), this court again said that in its judgment filling of land to a harbor line extinguished the public-trust rights in such property. The harbor lines were drafted in cooperation between state and local authorities to establish the point beyond which fill, wharves, and other structures would create an obstruction to navigation, commerce, and fishery. The opinions just referred to reflect the state of mind in those who created Harbor lines, and they confirm our conclusion that the state is in error in arguing that only an express legislative grant can extinguish the public trust in filled land. The state is correct in its assertion that harbor lines establish boundaries up to which filling could occur. The harbor lines were a legislative determination, generally made in conjunction with the local government, that encroachment on the waters to the harbor line would not constitute interference with fishery, commerce, or navigation. We realize that our opinion, while clarifying the limited application that Hall has, will not finally resolve the status of all the many parcels of land along our shore that are made of partially or wholly filled land where no harbor lines are involved. In an effort to resolve some concerns that will remain, we adopt a two-part test that can be used to establish ownership rights in filled tidal lands. The test should be applied on a case-by-case basis according to the facts in each situation. A littoral owner who fills along his or her shore line, whether to a harbor line or otherwise, with the acquiescence or the express or implied approval of the state and improves upon the land in justifiable reliance on the approval, would be able to establish title to that land that is free and clear. The littoral owner may pursue a course of action seeking to convey the deed to that property to himself or herself and become owner in fee-simple absolute provided that the littoral owner has not created any interference with the public-trust rights of fishery, commerce, and navigation. Once the littoral owner acquires title to the land in this manner, the state cannot reacquire it on the strength of the public-trust doctrine alone. The state can, however, at any time, place restrictions on the filling in of shoreline provided it does so before a landowner has changed position in reliance on government permission. [2] The state asserts alternately, without citation or authority, that these plaintiffs have a license [from the state] to exclusively occupy the premises [subject, of course, to existing regulatory schemes], and that the public rights in both parcels are not self-executing, but must await affirmative legislative action in order to be exercised. We disagree. A license is a revocable interest under Rhode Island law. Any property subject to a license from the state would be virtually unalienable. It would create a situation in which large amounts of valuable private properties would be worthless on the real estate market. For these reasons alone this option advanced by the state must fail. Although this court's early decisions did use the word license in conjunction with filling, it was used in the context that the establishment of a harbor line constituted a license, that is, permission, or an invitation, to fill to the harbor line. Once the invitation was accepted or the permission was acted upon, the upland owner who relied on the government permission acquired title from the state. Allen, 19 R.I. at 116, 32 A. at 167 (a harbor line permits the riparian owner to carry the upland    out a certain distance from the natural shore[,] [a]ctual extension of the upland to the new line extinguishes all public rights within it); Bailey v. Burges, 11 R.I. 330, 331-32 (1876) (the riparian proprietor    [who] fills out be the permission or acquiescence of the state    will take the land so filled    from the state); Clark v. Peckham, 10 R.I. 35, 38 (1871) ([s]o long as the dock is not filled by the owner of the bank, it is subject to the jus publicum of being used for passage by the whole public). Clearly the argument advanced by the state regarding a license is without merit. For the foregoing reasons we decide this request for a declaration of property rights in favor of the named plaintiffs and declare that they each hold fee-simple absolute title to the ownership rights of the land reclaimed from the sea by the placing of fill below mean high tide. LEDERBERG, J., did not participate.