Opinion ID: 874376
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Is the District Court's Finding Regarding the Ordinary High Water Mark of Herman Lake when Idaho Became a State Supported by Substantial and Competent Evidence?

Text: The Defendants challenge on appeal the district court's finding as to the historical ordinary high water mark of Herman Lake. Because Herman Lake was not navigable when Idaho became a state, the land owned by the respective parties is not based upon the ordinary high water mark of the lake. Instead, it is based upon the construction of the federal grants. As will be shown, the grant to the plaintiffs' predecessor included the land located between the meander line of his patent and the water and it also included a portion of the lake bed. When the government plat by which lands were conveyed indicates the existence of a meandered lake, there are two legal propositions that apply. As stated in Lee Wilson & Co. v. United States, 245 U.S. 24, 29, 38 S.Ct. 21, 23, 62 L.Ed. 128, 133 (1917) (citations omitted), they are as follows: First. Where in a survey of the public domain a body of water or lake is found to exist and is meandered, the result of such meander is to exclude the area from the survey and to cause it as thus separated to become subject to the riparian rights of the respective owners abutting on the meander line in accordance with the laws of the several states. Second. But where upon the assumption of the existence of a body of water or lake a meander line is through fraud or error mistakenly run because there is no such body of water, riparian rights do not attach because in the nature of things the condition upon which they depend does not exist and upon the discovery of the mistake it is within the power of the Land Department of the United States to deal with the area which was excluded from the survey, to cause it to be surveyed and to lawfully dispose of it. In the instant case, there is no contention that the second proposition applies. It is undisputed that Herman Lake existed at the time of the government survey in 1899. Thus, the first proposition is applicable. The land encircled by the meander lines around Lake Herman was not expressly granted by the federal government. It was impliedly conveyed to the patentees of the lots abutting the Lake. This Court applied the holding in the Lee Wilson & Co. case in Stroup v. Matthews, 44 Idaho 134, 255 P. 406 (1927). In Stroup, the plaintiff was granted by federal patent two fractional lots that, according to the official plat, were meandered by and adjoined the bank of the Snake River. The defendants later determined that there was considerable land between the meander lines of the plaintiff's lots and the river, and they asked the federal government to resurvey that land. It did and created two additional lots, which the defendants homesteaded. The plaintiff then brought an action seeking to quiet his title in the land homesteaded by the defendants. The trial court granted judgment in favor of the plaintiff, and the defendants appealed. This Court affirmed the judgment, holding that the government patent conveyed to the plaintiff all of the land between his meander line and the river. In so holding, this Court relied upon both Lee Wilson & Co. v. United States and Johnson v. Hurst, 10 Idaho 308, 77 P. 784 (1904), overruled on other grounds by Callahan v. Price, 26 Idaho 745, 755, 146 P. 732, 735 (1915). In Johnson v. Hurst , the plaintiff acquired by federal patent two fractional lots that contained 111.38 acres and were bounded on the south side by the Snake River, according to the official government plat. The meander line of the government survey on the south side of those lots went along the top of a bench near its edge rather than along the bank of the river. There were at least 160 acres of land between that meander line and the river. The defendant attempted to take possession of a portion of that land, and the plaintiff brought an action for quiet title. The trial court ruled that the plaintiff only owned to the meander lines of his lots, and he appealed. This Court reversed, holding that the plaintiff's grant from the federal government included all of the land between the meander lines of his lots as shown on the official plat and the river. The Court stated that the grantee to lots or fractional subdivisions abutting on the meander line takes title to the stream. 10 Idaho at 323, 77 P. at 790. Likewise, we held in Ulbright v. Baslington, 20 Idaho 539, 543, 119 P. 292, 293 (1911), overruled on other grounds by Callahan v. Price, 26 Idaho 745, 755, 146 P. 732, 735 (1915), that where the official plat of the grant from the federal government showed a meander line of a lake as a boundary, the landowner took title to the land between the meander line and the water. In Ulbright, the appellant's predecessor had received a grant from the federal government to fractional lots located in section 6, and the respondent's predecessor had received a grant from the federal government to fractional lots located in section 7. The official plat showed that a portion of the southern boundary of appellant's land was a meander line of a lake and that the meander line coincided with the line between sections 6 and 7. The respondent contended that because the section line and the meander line coincided, the appellant could not own any land in section 7. This Court disagreed, stating: This position would be correct if the south boundary line of appellant's property were only a section or subdivision line, but it is more than that. It is a section line and a meander line and so appears from the official plat, and likewise upon the field-notes as the same were returned by the surveyor to the surveyor general's office. This was a meander line of a body of water, and it follows that the patentee to the lands bounded by this meander line is a riparian proprietor, and he is subsequently entitled to take to the water. 20 Idaho at 543-44, 119 P. at 293 (emphasis added). Stroup v. Matthews , Johnson v. Hurst , and Ulbright v. Baslington all held that the patentee of property bounded by a meander line is a riparian landowner and takes title to land described in the patent and to the land located between the meander line and the water. The common law recognized in Lattig v. Scott and Hardin v. Jordan holds that the patentee of land riparian to a nonnavigable body of water takes title to the center of the bed of the stream or lake. Thus, the patentee of property bounded by the meander line of a nonnavigable lake takes title not only to the land described in the patent but also to the land between the meander line and the water and to a ratable portion of the lake bed. In the instant case, it appears from the surveyor's notes and the official plat that all of the lands surrounding Herman Lake were surveyed by the United States. The federal government conveyed the lands surrounding Herman Lake, and there is nothing indicating that it reserved any interest in the Lake. The grant from the federal government to the Plaintiffs' predecessor stated that the land conveyed included lot one ... according to the official plat of the survey of the said land. The official plat showed a meander line along a portion of the east boundary of lot one. In construing the intent of that grant, the conveyance of lot one to Plaintiffs' predecessor included the land from the meander line of lot one to the water of Herman Lake and a portion of the lake bed. Because the boundary lines are drawn from the ends of the meander lines to the middle of the lake, Ulbright v. Baslington, 20 Idaho 539, 543, 119 P. 292, 293 (1911), the ordinary high water mark of the lake need not be determined in order to draw those boundary lines. Since the State of Idaho was not granted ownership of the beds of nonnavigable waters, United States v. Oregon, 295 U.S. 1, 28-29, 55 S.Ct. 610, 621-22, 79 L.Ed. 1267, 1281(1935), the public trust doctrine does not apply to those waters, Idaho Forest Industries, Inc. v. Hayden Lake Watershed Improvement District, 112 Idaho 512, 516, 733 P.2d 733, 737 (1987) (it is clear that the public trust arises only in land below the natural high water mark of navigable waters). Likewise, the landowners along the shore do not have the littoral rights of landowners abutting a navigable lake. As stated in 78 Am.Jur.2d Waters § 41(2002): [I]n the case of a nonnavigable lake or pond where the land under the water is owned by others, no littoral rights attach to the property bordering on the water and that an attempt to exercise any such rights by invading the water is as much a trespass as if an unauthorized entry were made upon the dry land of another. In this case, the parties stipulated to a judgment granting the Plaintiffs specifically defined property down to the current ordinary high water mark of Herman Lake based upon the theory of reliction according to the long lake method. That judgment must be vacated because the Plaintiffs are also entitled to a portion of the lake bed as provided in Ulbright v. Baslington .