Opinion ID: 2829231
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: History of Beach Ownership Along the Gulf of Mexico

Text: Long-standing principles of Texas property law establish parameters for our analysis. It is well-established that the “soil covered by the bays, inlets, and arms of the Gulf of Mexico within tidewater limits belongs to the State, and constitutes public property that is held in trust for the use and benefit of all the people.” Lorino v. Crawford Packing Co. , 175 S.W.2d 410, 413 (Tex. 1943); Landry v. Robison , 219 S.W. 819, 820 (Tex. 1920) (“For our decisions are unanimous in the declaration that by the principles of the civil and common law, soil under navigable waters was treated as held by the state or nation in trust for the whole people.” 7 ); De Meritt v. Robison Land Comm’r , 116 S.W. 796, 797 (Tex. 1909) (holding “[ i ]n the contemplation of law,” soil lying below the line of ordinary high tide, “was not land, but water”); see also Tex. Nat. Res. Code § 11.012(c) (“The State of Texas owns the water and the beds and shores of the Gulf of Mexico and the arms of the Gulf of Mexico within the boundaries provided in this section, including all land which is covered by the Gulf of Mexico and the arms of the Gulf of Mexico either at low tide or high tide.”). These lands are part of the public trust, and only the Legislature can grant to private parties title to submerged lands that are part of the public trust. Lorino , 175 S.W.2d at 414; see also TH Invs ., Inc. v. Kirby Inland Marine, L.P. , 218 S.W.3d 173, 182–83 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2007, pet. denied) (holding that lands submerged in the Gulf belong to the State) (citations omitted), cert. denied , ___ U.S. ___, 129 S. Ct. 899 (2009). Current title to realty and corresponding encumbrances on the property may be affected in important ways by the breadth of and limitations on prior grants and titles. We review the original Mexican and Republic of Texas grants and patents to lands abutting the sea in West Galveston Island. 8 The Republic of Texas won her independence from Mexico in 1836. Mexico’s laws prohibited colonization of land within ten leagues of the coast without approval from the president. General Law of Colonization, art. 4 (Mex., Aug. 18, 1824), reprinted in 1 H.P.N. Gammel, The Laws of Texas 1822–1897 [hereinafter “Gammel, The Laws of Texas”] , at 97, 97 (Austin, Gammel Book Co. 1898). 9 Title to West Beach property was first granted in November 1840 by the Republic of Texas to Levi Jones and Edward Hall in a single patent (the “Jones and Hall Grant”). See Seaway Co. v. Att’y Gen. , 375 S.W.2d 923, 928 (Tex. Civ. App.—Houston 1964, writ ref’d n.r.e .). 1 0 After admission to the Union in 1845, the State of Texas by legislation in 1852 and 1854 first confirmed the validity of the Jones and Hall Grant and then disclaimed title to those lands. In 1852, the State declared that it “hereby releases and relinquishes forever, all of her title to such lots on Galveston Island as are now in the actual possession and occupation of persons who purchased under the [Jones and Hall Grant].” Act approved Feb. 16, 1852, 4th Leg., R.S., ch . 119, § 1, 1852 Tex. Gen. Laws 142, 142, reprinted in 3 Gammel, The Laws of Texas , at 1020, 1020; Act of Feb. 8, 1854, 5th Leg., R.S., ch . 73, § 1, 1854 Tex. Special Laws 125, 125–26, reprinted in 4 Gammel, The Laws of Texas , at 125, 125–26 (confirming the 1840 Jones and Hall Grant and “disclaim[ ing ] any title in and to the lands described in said patent, in favor of the grantees and those claiming under them”). 1 1 In 1854, the State affirmed its intent to grant ownership of all land in West Beach up to the public trust to Jones and Hall with no express reservation of either title to the property or a public right to use the beaches. 1 2 The government relinquished all title in the Jones and Hall Grant, without reserving any right to use of the property. The Republic could have reserved the right of the public to use the beachfront property, “but the plain language of the grant shows the Republic of Texas did not do so.” Seaway Co. , 375 S.W.2d at 929 . All the Gulf beachland in West Galveston Island that extended to the public trust was conveyed to private parties by the sovereign Republic of Texas as later affirmed by the State of Texas. Having established that the State of Texas owned the land under Gulf tidal waters, the question remained how far inland from the low tide line did the public trust—the State’s title—extend. We answered that question in Luttes v. State . This Court held that the delineation between State-owned submerged tidal lands (held in trust for the public) and coastal property that could be privately owned was the “mean higher high tide” line under Spanish or Mexican grants and the “mean high tide” line under Anglo-American law. 1 3 324 S.W.2d 167, 191–92 (Tex. 1958). The wet beach is owned by the State as part of the public trust, and the dry beach is not part of the public trust and may be privately owned. See generally id . Prior to Luttes , there was a question whether the public trust extended to the vegetation line. Luttes established the landward boundary of the public trust at the mean high tide line. Luttes , 324 S.W.2d at 187–88 . These boundary demarcations are a direct response to the ever-changing nature of the coastal landscape because it is impractical to apply static real property boundary concepts to property lines that are delineated by the ocean’s edge. The sand does not stay in one place, nor does the tide line. While the vegetation line may appear static because it does not move daily like the tide, it is constantly affected by the tide, wind, and other weather and natural occurrences. A person purchasing beachfront property along the Texas coast does so with the risk that their property may eventually, or suddenly, recede into the ocean. When beachfront property recedes seaward and becomes part of the wet beach or submerged under the ocean, a private property owner loses that property to the public trust. We explained in State v. Balli : Any distinction that can be drawn between the alluvion of rivers and accretions cast up by the sea must arise out of the law of the seashore rather than that of accession and be based . . . upon the ancient maxim that the seashore is common property and never passes to private hands . . . . [This] remains as a guiding principle in all or nearly all jurisdictions which acknowledge the common law . . . . 190 S.W.2d 71, 100 (Tex. 1945). Likewise, if the ocean gradually recedes away from the land moving the high tide line seaward, a private property owner’s land may increase at the expense of the public trust. See id. Regardless of these changes, the boundary remains fixed (relatively) at the mean high tide line. See Luttes , 324 S.W.2d at 191–93 . Any other approach would leave locating that boundary to pure guesswork. See Coastal Indus. Water Auth. v. York , 532 S.W.2d 949, 952 n.1 (Tex. 1976) . In 1959, the Legislature enacted the Open Beaches Act to address responses to the Luttes opinion establishing the common law landward boundary of State-owned beaches at the mean high tide line. The Legislature feared that this holding might “give encouragement to some overanxious developers to fence the seashore” as some private landowners had “erected barricades upon many beaches, some of these barricades extending into the water.” Tex. Legis. Beach Study Comm., 57th Leg., R.S., The Beaches and Islands of Texas [hereinafter “ Beach Study Comm., Beaches and Islands of Texas ”] 1 (1961), available at http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/scanned/interim/56/56_B352.pdf; Tex. Leg. Interim Beach Study Comm., 65th Leg., R.S., Footprints on the Sands of Time [hereinafter “ Beach Study Comm., Footprints”] 22 (1969), available at http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/scanned/interim/60/B352.pdf. The OBA declared the State’s public policy for the public to have “free and unrestricted access” to State-owned beaches, the wet beach, and the dry beach where the public “has acquired ” an easement or other right to use that property. Tex. Nat. Res. Code § 61.011(a). To enforce this policy, the OBA prohibits anyone from creating, erecting, or constructing any “obstruction, barrier, or restraint that will interfere with the free and unrestricted right of the public” to access Texas beaches where the public has acquired a right of use or easement. Id. § 61.013(a). The Act authorizes the removal of barriers or other obstructions on state-owned beaches to which the public has the right of ingress and egress bordering on the seaward shore of the Gulf of Mexico or any larger area extending from the line of mean low tide to the line of vegetation bordering on the Gulf of Mexico if the public has acquired a right of use or easement to or over the area by prescription, dedication, or has retained a right by virtue of continuous right in the public . Id. §§ 61.012, .013(a) (emphasis added). The OBA does not alter Luttes . It enforces the public’s right to use the dry beach on private property where an easement exists and enforces public rights to access and use State-owned beaches. Therefore, the OBA, by its terms, does not create or diminish substantive property rights. Beach Study Comm., Footprints 22 (stating that the “statute cannot truly be said to create any new rights”); Richard J. Elliott, Open Beaches Act: Public Rights to Beach Access , 28 Baylor L. Rev. 383, 392 (1976) (“In terms of pure substantive law, the Open Beaches Act probably creates no rights in the public which did not previously exist under the common law.”). In promulgating the OBA, the Legislature seemed careful to preserve private property rights by emphasizing that the enforcement of public use of private beachfront property can occur when a historic right of use is retained in the public or is proven by dedication or prescription. See Tex. Nat. Res. Code § 61.013(a), (c). The OBA also specifically disclaims any intent to take rights from private owners to Gulf-shore beach property. Id. § 61.023; see Seaway Co. , 375 S.W.2d at 930 (“There is nothing in the Act which seeks to take rights from an owner of land.”). Within these acknowledgments, the OBA proclaims that beaches should be open to the public. Certainly, the OBA guards the right of the public to use public beaches against infringement by private interests. But, as explained, the OBA is not contrary to private property rights at issue in this case under principles of Texas law. The public has a right to use the West Galveston beaches when the State owns the beaches or the government obtains or proves an easement for use of the dry beach under the common law or by other means set forth in the OBA. 1 4 In 1969, the Legislature’s Interim Beach Study Committee, chaired by Senator A.R. Schwartz of Galveston County, confirmed the view that: [The OBA] does not, and can not , declare that the public has an easement on the beach, a right of access over private property to and from the State-owned beaches bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. An easement is a property interest; the State can no more impress private property with an easement without compensating the owner of the property than it can build a highway across such land without paying the owner . Beach Study Comm., Footprints 17 . The Interim Beach Study Committee was created, among other reasons, to assure that beach development be undertaken to serve the best interests of the people of Texas and to study methods of procuring right-of-ways for roads parallel to the beaches, easements for ingress and egress to the beach, parking for beach access, methods for negotiating with landowners for additional easements, and rights for landowners to construct works for the protection of their property. Id. at 1–2.