Opinion ID: 112480
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Right-Angle Principle

Text: This Court in its 1922 decision in Georgia v. South Carolina ruled that (1) at any point where there is no island in the Savannah River, the boundary is on the water midway between the main banks of the river when the water is at ordinary stage, and (2) where there is an island the boundary is midway between the island bank and the South Carolina shore when the water is at ordinary stage. 257 U. S., at 523. This seemingly simple and routine resolution, however, results in a problem, not decided in the 1922 case, when the midline of the stream encounters an island and must move northward to qualify as the line midway between the island bank and the South Carolina shore. Where and how does this boundary movement to the north take place? Is it when the midline touches the island, if it does touch it at all, and does it then move at right angles until it reaches a point midway between the island bank and the South Carolina shore? Does it then proceed accordingly until the island is bypassed and the midline of the stream is to be met and followed, and is a right angle to be applied there as well? A line midway between the banks of a river, known as the medium filum acquae, Shalowitz, supra, at 374, is easily established, for every point of the midline is equidistant from the nearest points on the opposite shores. See New Hampshire v. Maine, 426 U. S. 363, 371 (1976) (WHITE, J., dissenting). But, as noted, the ease of ascertainment disappears when an island and the Treaty of Beaufort are encountered. Such is the case here, particularly with respect to the Special Master's treatment of the line around Pennyworth Island north of the city of Savannah. This issue clearly was not determined, and perhaps was not even contemplated, by the framers of the Treaty. What the Special Master did in the absence of authorityand we have found none  was to use the line midway between an island and the South Carolina shore (as the parties agree is proper) until the island ended and ceased to lie opposite the shore. There the boundary was to revert to the middle of the river. The Master then used a right-angle line connecting the island-to-bank center line with the bank-to-bank center line by the shortest distance. South Carolina urges that this is the most reasonable approach to this unique problem and that the Master's recommended device should be adopted. Georgia's position, also apparently unsupported by decisional authority, but see S. Boggs, International Boundaries: A Study of Boundary Functions and Problems 183 (1966), is that the use of the right angle is simply wrong. Instead, Georgia argues, that, with an island's presence, the boundary is to be marked by the use of a point which is tri-equidistant from the South Carolina shore, the island shore, and the Georgia shore. The boundary then would pass through this point and otherwise be equidistant from the South Carolina shore and the Georgia shore, or island, as the case may be. See Ga. Exceptions 50-51. We think that Georgia has the better of this argument. Its submission, it seems to us, is sensible, is less artificial than other lines, is fair to both States, and is generally in line with what was said in Georgia v. South Carolina. Georgia's exception to the right-angle principle used by the Special Master is therefore sustained, and Georgia's approach, not that of the right angle, is to be utilized wherever this fact situation is encountered in the stretch of the Savannah River under consideration.