Opinion ID: 2829230
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Texas Nuisance Law

Text: Texas nuisance laws permit the enforcement of rolling easements without requiring compensation. This area of the law imposes a general limitation on landowners. Property owners may not use their property in a way that unreasonably interferes with the property rights of others. See Schneider Nat. Carriers, Inc. v. Bates , 147 S.W.3d 264, 269 (Tex. 2004). An action that does not begin as a nuisance may nevertheless become a nuisance due to changing circumstances. See Atlas Chem. Indus., Inc. v. Anderson , 524 S.W.2d 681, 685–86 (Tex. 1975) (finding that heavy rains causing previously discharged pollutants from upstream manufacturing plant to spread more broadly across downstream land to be a nuisance). Movements of the coast change circumstances and thus affect property rights of both private beachfront owners and the public. As a result, a beach house that moves seaward of the vegetation line because of natural changes to the coast becomes a nuisance, restricting the public’s ability to use and enjoy the beach. In this unique area of property law, rolling beachfront easements are unlike any other type of easement abutting a waterway. They are not only subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, but also the ocean’s surging waves. The ocean is unlike any other body of water. 1 8 The primary movement of the coastline is through hurricanes and tropical storms. 1 9 Requiring the state to re-establish public beach easements after storms places an unreasonable burden on the state, a burden that was actually assumed by the landowner who purchased property near the beach.