Opinion ID: 2351771
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Common Law Riparian Rights

Text: Great Cove contends in its cross-appeal that the court erred in finding that a riparian property owner had no absolute right to maintain wharves or docks beyond the low water mark. At common law, the owners of land abutting a body of water, by reason of their adjacency, were accorded certain rights or privileges different from those generally belonging to the public. According to an early twentieth century authority, the traditional common law rights included: (1) the right to have the water remain in place and retain, as nearly as possible, its natural character, (2) the right of access to the water, (3) subject to reasonable restrictions, the right to wharf out to the navigable portion of the body of water, and (4) the right of free use of the water immediately adjoining the property for the transaction of business associated with wharves. Farnham, Water and Water Rights § 62 (1904) quoted in Kalo, Coastal and Ocean Law 119-20 (1991). We have recognized, however, that while a riparian land owner has certain rights which inhere in his ownership of land adjacent to a body of water, these rights are subject to reasonable regulation by the State in the exercise of its public trust rights. Whitmore v. Brown, 102 Me. 47, 56, 65 A. 516 (1906) (citing Commonwealth v. Alger, 61 Mass. (7 Cush.) 53 (1851)). In Whitmore, while acknowledging an upland owner's right to erect wharves, we also recognized the Legislature's power to regulate such construction by requiring the upland owner to acquire a license before building the dock. Id. As one court has stated in addressing the conflict between an upland owner's traditional common law rights and the State's interests under the public trust doctrine, [A] littoral proprietor and riparian owner, as is universally conceded, have [sic] a qualified property in the waterfrontage, belonging by nature to their land; the chief advantage growing out of the appurtenant estate in the submerged land being the right of access over an extension of their water fronts to navigable water, and the right to construct wharves, piers or landings subject to such general rules and regulations as the legislature, in the exercise of its powers, may prescribe for the protection of public rights in rivers or navigable waters. Capune v. Robbins, 273 N.C. 581, 160 S.E.2d 881, 886 (1968). Thus, Great Cove's riparian rights, which include the right to wharf-out, are not absolute, but rather are subject to the reasonable regulation contained in section 558-A requiring the obtaining of a lease or easement from the Bureau in order to erect a wharf or dock. The court did not err on this point in granting the Bureau's motion for a summary judgment. The entry is: Judgment modified to extinguish the statutorily created constructive easement and, as so modified, affirmed. WATHEN, C.J., and ROBERTS and GLASSMAN, JJ. concurring.