Opinion ID: 1111929
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Common Law Definitions and Principles

Text: Because of the Trustees's position, it is appropriate to review common law definitions and principles. The term riparian owner applies to waterfront owners along a river or stream, and littoral owner applies to waterfront owners abutting an ocean, sea, or lake. Cases and statutes, however, have used riparian owner broadly to describe all waterfront owners. Accretion means the gradual and imperceptible accumulation of land along the shore or bank of a body of water. Reliction or dereliction is an increase of the land by a gradual and imperceptible withdrawal of any body of water. Avulsion is the sudden or perceptible loss of or addition to land by the action of the water or a sudden change in the bed of a lake or the course of a stream. Gradual and imperceptible means that, although witnesses may periodically perceive changes in the waterfront, they could not observe them occurring. See generally Black's Law Dictionary (5th ed. 1979); F. Maloney, S. Plager & F. Baldwin, Water Law and Administration  The Florida Experience 385-92 (1968); 65 C.J.S.. Navigable Waters §§ 81, 86, 93 (1966). In Philadelphia Co. v. Stimson, 223 U.S. 605, 32 S.Ct. 340, 56 L.Ed. 570 (1912), the United States Supreme Court, in defining this phrase, explained: [For the change to be perceptible, it] is not enough that the change may be discerned by comparison at two distinct points of time. It must be perceptible when it takes place. The test as to what is gradual and imperceptible ... is, that though the witnesses may see from time to time that progress has been made, they could not perceive it while the process was going on. Id. at 624, 32 S.Ct. at 346, quoting County of St. Clair v. Lovingston, 90 U.S. (23 Wall.) 46, 68, 23 L.Ed. 46 (1874) (citations omitted). This Court has expressly adopted the common law rule that a riparian or littoral owner owns to the line of the ordinary high water mark on navigable waters. State v. Florida Natural Properties, Inc., 338 So.2d 13 (Fla. 1976); Hayes v. Bowman, 91 So.2d 795 (Fla. 1957); Brickell v. Trammell, 77 Fla. 544, 82 So. 221 (1919); Thiesen v. Gulf F. & A. Ry. Co., 75 Fla. 28, 78 So. 491 (1918). We have also held that riparian or littoral rights are legal rights and, for constitutional purposes, the common law rights of riparian and littoral owners constitute property. Hayes; Brickell; Thiesen; Feller v. Eau Gallie Yacht Basin, Inc., 397 So.2d 1155 (5th DCA 1981). Riparian and littoral property rights consist not only of the right to use the water shared by the public, but include the following vested rights: (1) the right of access to the water, including the right to have the property's contact with the water remain intact; (2) the right to use the water for navigational purposes; (3) the right to an unobstructed view of the water; and (4) the right to receive accretions and relictions to the property. See Hughes v. Washington, 389 U.S. 290, 88 S.Ct. 438, 19 L.Ed.2d 530 (1967); County of St. Clair; Hayes; Brickell; Thiesen. In Brickell, we said these riparian or littoral rights are property rights that may be regulated by law, but may not be taken without just compensation and due process of law, Brickell, 77 Fla. at 561, 82 So. at 227, and we recently reaffirmed that principle in Florida National Properties, Inc. The common law right of a riparian or littoral owner to accretions or relictions has a significant historical foundation. Blackstone set forth this right: And as to lands gained from the sea, either by alluvion, by the washing up of sand and earth, so as in time to make terra firma; or by dereliction, as when the sea shrinks back below the usual watermark; in these cases the law is held to be, that if this gain be by little and little, by small and impercetible degrees, it shall go to the owner of the land adjoining... . [T]hese owners being often losers by the breaking in of the sea, or at charges to keep it out, this possible gain is therefore a reciprocal consideration for such possible charge or loss. 2 W. Blackstone, Commentaries []261-62 (emphasis in original). In Banks v. Ogden, 69 U.S. (2 Wall.) 57, 67, 17 L.Ed. 818 (1864), the United States Supreme Court recognized accretions and relictions as a vested property right: Almost all jurists and legislators ... both ancient and modern, have agreed that the owner of the [waterfront property] ... is entitled to these additions. By some the rule has been vindicated on the principle of natural justice, that he who sustains the burden of losses and of repairs, imposed by the contiguity of waters, ought to receive whatever benefits they may bring by accretion; by others it is derived from the principle of public policy, that it is the interest of the community that all land should have an owner, and most convenient, that insensible additions to the shore should follow the title to the shore itself. Many decisions of this Court have accepted the common law principle that title to additional lands caused by accretions and relictions is vested in owners of abutting waterfront lands. Florida National Properties; Brickell; Thiesen; Merrill-Stevens Co. v. Durkee, 62 Fla. 549, 57 So. 428 (1911); Broward v. Mabry, 58 Fla. 398, 50 So. 826 (1909). See also Ford v. Turner, 142 So.2d 335 (Fla. 2d DCA 1962); Paxson v. Collins, 100 So.2d 672 (Fla. 3d DCA 1958); Mexico Beach Corp. v. St. Joe Paper Co., 97 So.2d 708 (Fla. 1st DCA 1957).