Opinion ID: 2289766
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Title to Improvements

Text: All parties to this appeal appear to recognize the weight which Goodsell v. Lawson, supra , brings to any consideration of the rights of the riparian owner in Maryland. Accordingly, we think a resume of its facts and pertinent law to be in order. In Goodsell, the plaintiffs owned riparian land in Somerset County under an 1858 patent of Honesty, some lines of which coincided with the shore of the navigable Annamessex River. They laid out their lands as the Town of Crisfield, with the contiguous water, which it was proposed to use in connection with the land. In 1867 they leased an area under water in front of their shore to the defendant for 10 years for the conducting of an oyster business. The lease required the defendant to deposit the oyster shells resulting from his business in the water on said premises, so as to fill up the same, and reclaim it for building and other purposes,   . After defendant lessee performed this covenant, he sought a patent for the (artificially) filled land. It was held that he was not entitled to the patent, that the plaintiffs as riparian owners had the exclusive right to fill out from shore under the Act of 1862 and that the improvements thus made by their tenant became their property. The Court in its opinion stated: But the rights of the appellees do not rest alone upon this ground. By the Code, Art. 54, sec. 38, there is secured to them as riparian proprietors, the exclusive right of making improvements into the waters in front of their lands, and such improvements when made belong to them as incident to their estate. This is a valuable right which other persons cannot lawfully destroy or interfere with. Where such rights existed under the Acts of 1745 and 1784, it has been held that no patent ought to be issued for the land covered by water, in front of the property of the riparian proprietor, so as to interfere with its prospective enjoyment by him; and this was decided before the passage of the Act of 1861-62. Chapman v. Hoskins, 2 Md. Ch. 485, approved in Patterson v. Gelston, 23 Md. 448. In the exercise of this right of improvement, the riparian proprietor is not restricted except by the provision, `that the improvements so made shall not interfere with the navigation of the stream of water, into which the said improvement is made.' Code, Art. 54, sec. 38. 42 Md. 348, 371-2. It would appear that there is no dispute among the parties over the proposition that under the Act of 1745  or 1862  `the riparian had no vested title to the land covered by water immediately in front of his property, nor to the improvements built out of the water, until the improvements had been actually completed Giraud's Lessee v. Hughes, 1 Gill and J. 249 [1829].'   . (Emphasis supplied.) Baltimore v. Canton Co., supra, at 625. And in Causey v. Gray, supra , we said: When the lot owner makes improvements in front of his lot, complete title vests in him in the improvements provided it is in front of his lot   . See also Owen v. Hubbard, supra ; Cahill v. Baltimore, 173 Md. 450, 456, 196 A. 305 (1938); Melvin v. Schlessinger, 138 Md. 337, 343, 113 A. 875 (1921); Hodson v. Nelson, supra, 337-338; Western Maryland T.R. Co. v. Baltimore, supra at 567; Hess v. Muir, supra at 596; Goodsell v. Lawson, supra at 371.