Opinion ID: 2518074
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Pre-statehood judicial decisions

Text: The right to wharf out in Alaska was addressed by courts prior to statehood in the context of actions by littoral [15] owners against private parties preventing their access to adjacent tidelands and submerged lands. While we are not bound by federal judicial rulings entered prior to the date of statehood, [16] these decisions help to define the context in which our constitutional framers and the first Alaska state legislature acted. In Dalton v. Hazelet, decided in 1910, the Ninth Circuit held: while in a territory a grant of land bordering on or bounded by navigable waters conveys to the grantee no right or title to the shore or soil below high-water mark, nevertheless such a grantee has the right to a free and unobstructed access to such waters. [17] This right to access includes the right to erect structures over waters too shoal [i.e. shallow] to be navigable, but only up to the point of navigability where the necessity for such erections ordinarily ceases. [18] The court noted, however, that a riparian owner's right of access by means of a wharf or other structure is subject to `the right of [a future state] to regulate the use' of `tide lands and beds of any of its navigable waters.' [19] The district court for the Territory of Alaska considered the right to wharf out in detail several years later. In Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Co. v. Northern Lumber Mills, the court explained that a riparian owner may construct a wharf because he has a right of access to the deep water, and he cannot enjoy that right except by means of a wharf. The right to build a wharf in such cases is not a major right, not an independent right, not an all-sufficient right. It is a qualified right, having no potency whatsoever except in so far as it is referable and appurtenant to, and is a part of, that other right, called the right of access.[ [20] ] The court defined the right of access as an easement, and as such, the extent of a wharf built to exercise that right must be reasonable. [21] Reasonableness is dependent upon the purpose for which such access is desired, with reference to the size and kind of vessels which navigate the stream, and the kind of business done upon it. [22] The court found the proposed wharf in question, which could accommodate large vessels carrying coal and heavy mining machinery, to be necessary and reasonable for a large quartz mining operation. [23] Finally, the court noted that the right of access is one of which, when once it is vested, the owner can only be deprived in accordance with the established law, and if necessary that it be taken for the public good, upon due compensation. [24] Shortly before statehood, the territorial court again addressed the rights of a littoral owner, enjoining a defendant from removing gravel from tidelands where the removal would prevent plaintiff sawmill operator who owned adjacent tidelands from constructing a wharf to load lumber on barges and vessels. [25] Relying on Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Co., the court stated: It is well established that a right of access such as claimed by the plaintiff, is a property right and may be exercised by constructing a wharf, pier or dock over the intervening tide lands to the navigable waters. [26] As a legal right, the right of access may not be impaired without compensation. [27] These cases make clear that prior to statehood, a riparian owner in the Territory of Alaska, while having no right or title to the soil below, had a common-law right to wharf out that, once vested, could not be taken without compensation. But the exercise of this right had to be reasonable; the wharf could be constructed only to the extent necessary to reach navigable waters, with reference to its intended use.