Opinion ID: 215663
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Determination of Boundary

Text: The dispute between the parties over the extent of Sanders’s interest in SU 117 stems from Louisiana law governing the ownership of land surrounding a navigable lake.2 “[T]he State of Louisiana upon its admission to the Union acquired title to all lands within its boundaries below the ordinary high-water mark of navigable bodies of water . . . . As to lakes, the State has never ceded, and still holds, the land below the ordinary high-water mark.” State v. Placid Oil Co., 300 So. 2d 154, 172 (La. 1974). The State has also determined by statute not to recognize any right to alluvion or dereliction on the shores of lakes.3 LA. CIV. CODE ANN. art. 500 (2010); see also Placid Oil, 300 So. 2d at 2 The parties agree that Catahoula Lake is a navigable lake. 3 “Alluvion” is the expansion of the shoreline over time by the deposit of sediment, whereas “dereliction” is the expansion of the shoreline by the receding of water. LA . CIV . CODE 4 Case: 10-30475 Document: 00511460184 Page: 5 Date Filed: 04/28/2011 No. 10-30475 173 (“As to lakes, the adjacent landowners have no alluvial rights.”). The effect of these rules on this case is that the State of Louisiana holds title to all land that was below the ordinary high-water mark of Catahoula Lake in 1812, when Louisiana joined the Union, and Sanders holds title to the land above that mark. See Sanders v. State, 973 So. 2d 879, 883 (La. Ct. App. 2007) (“No one disputes that it is the ordinary high water level as it existed in 1812 in Catahoula Lake that determines the extent of the State’s ownership.”). The parties are further in agreement that the ordinary high water level of Catahoula Lake in 1812 is thirty-six feet above mean sea level (“MSL”). They disagree, however, about how to fix that point, relying on two different surveys. Belle points to the 1942 Heard and Daigre Survey and Sanders points to the 2001 Tooke Survey. The Heard and Daigre Survey represented the State’s effort to assess where the high water mark of Catahoula Lake would have been in 1812, but it appears to have been conducted as a meander survey. A meander survey determines the approximate location of the lake and plots the sinuosities of the shoreline, but generally does not set the boundary between private and public ownership unless expressly provided for in a conveyance. Sanders, 973 So. 2d at 884. The Tooke Survey locates the true thirty-six foot MSL contour line, but only as it lay in 2001. The competing surveys were placed in evidence before the district court, which ultimately agreed with Belle that the Heard and Daigre Survey more properly established the boundary line between the State’s and Sanders’s land than the Tooke Survey. The district court offered two independent bases for its decision: first, the Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeal’s decision in a related case,4 and, ANN . art. 499 (2010). 4 In Sanders v. State, 973 So.2d 879, the Louisiana Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed a possessory judgment in favor of Sanders and against the State of Louisiana as to the lands between the thirty and one-tenth feet MSL and thirty-six feet MSL. Id. at 880. 5 Case: 10-30475 Document: 00511460184 Page: 6 Date Filed: 04/28/2011 No. 10-30475 second, the court’s independent assessment of the evidence introduced at trial. Rather than wade into the state law question of the preclusive effect of Sanders, we examine the second basis for the district court’s decision and conclude that Sanders is unable to show that the district court’s reliance on the Heard and Daigre Survey was clearly erroneous. Sanders and Belle agree that the ultimate question put to the district court required the district court to locate the thirty-six foot MSL contour line as it existed in 1812. The district court was faced with two imperfect pieces of evidence on the question: the thirty-six foot MSL contour line as it existed in 2001, reflected in the Tooke Survey, and the thirty-six foot MSL meander line as the State’s surveyors concluded it probably existed in 1812, reflected in the 1942 Heard and Daigre Survey. Sanders may be correct that the Heard and Daigre Survey did not definitively establish the proper boundary because it is a meander line. See, e.g., Bd. of Comm’rs v. Rathborne Land Co., 868 So. 2d 928, 931 (La. Ct. App. 2004) (“In general, meanders are not to be treated as boundaries . . . .”). However, a contour survey conducted 189 years after the fact, as the Tooke Survey was, also does not establish definitively where those contours lay in 1812. Both surveys were relevant and probative evidence,5 but neither was conclusive evidence. After a full trial, the district court determined The Louisiana court held that “the ordinary high water mark [of Catahoula Lake] in 1812 was 36 feet MSL as surveyed by Heard and Daigre in 1942.” Id. at 887. 5 Sanders argues that the district court should not have admitted the Heard and Daigre Survey as evidence of Sanders’s property line, but this argument is simply an extension of his position that the district court could not rely on the Heard and Daigre Survey to establish a property line as a matter of law. Sanders otherwise concedes the Heard and Daigre Survey’s admissibility in general. We observe no abuse of discretion by the district court in treating this survey as relevant evidence. See Eiland v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 58 F.3d 176, 180 (5th Cir. 1995) (“Because of his or her involvement in the trial, a district court judge often has superior knowledge and understanding of the probative value of evidence. Therefore, we show considerable deference to the district court’s evidentiary rulings, reviewing them only for abuse of discretion.”). 6 Case: 10-30475 Document: 00511460184 Page: 7 Date Filed: 04/28/2011 No. 10-30475 that the Heard and Daigre Survey line was likely more accurate. We are unwilling to hold that Sanders has demonstrated that the district court’s choice between two proposed boundaries meets the high standard of clear error. See Anderson, 470 U.S. at 574.