Opinion ID: 600290
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Public Trust Lands and Waters

Text: 4 The State bases its title claim, first, on public trust jurisprudence and the equal footing doctrine. On equal footing with the original thirteen states, Louisiana, upon attaining statehood, received ownership of all navigable waters within its borders and all tide waters and the lands under them from the United States in public trust. See Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Mississippi, 484 U.S. 469, 479-81, 108 S.Ct. 791, 796-97, 98 L.Ed.2d 877 (1988). Thus, the first element of Louisiana's claim based on the equal footing doctrine depends upon whether waters that were navigable or subject to the ebb and flow of the tide covered any of the property in the year of Louisiana's statehood, 1812. The court rejected this claim upon finding that no natural navigable water bodies existed on the property in 1812 and that the land was not then subject to the ebb and flow of the tide. Appellants challenge both the factual finding and the legal standard employed by the district court.
5 The district court found that in 1812 none of the Lafourche Realty property was under waters that were navigable in fact. 2 This Court does not set aside a district court's factual findings unless they are clearly erroneous. Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a); Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573, 105 S.Ct. 1504, 1511, 84 L.Ed.2d 518 (1985). When findings are based on determinations regarding the credibility of witnesses, Rule 52(a) demands even greater deference to the trial court's findings. Id. at 575, 105 S.Ct. at 1512. Unless we are left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed, we accept the trial court's findings. Gulf Consol. Servs., Inc. v. Corinth Pipeworks, S.A., 898 F.2d 1071, 1076 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 900, 111 S.Ct. 256, 112 L.Ed.2d 214 (1990). 6 The court's finding of non-navigability is supported by the testimony of Lafourche Realty's expert, Sherwood M. Gagliano, Ph.D., and official township surveys from later in the 1800's that do not depict any navigable water bodies on the property. 7 The State disparages the township surveys on the basis of its expert witness and nineteenth century maps showing the existence of lakes and streams northwest of Caminada Bay. The State's expert, Mr. Charles Coates, discredited the absence of water bodies on the township surveys. He explained that those early surveyors did not meander the waters either because of the instability of the terrain or because the interior marsh was not considered saleable. The State also strongly urges reliance upon Captain G.W. Hughes's 1842 Map of Military Reconnaissance and Survey, allegedly depicting lakes and streams corresponding in location to some of the contested water bodies; this lake complex reappears in later maps until 1870, a couple of years before the official township survey. 8 The court found, however, that the complex of three-to-four lakes that some nineteenth-century maps portray ... are fictitious, at least to the extent the maps purport that any such water bodies lay within the Lafourche Realty Property. This finding was supported by Dr. Gagliano, who concluded that the four shallow lakes linked by a stream appearing on the Hughes map were sketched in as an afterthought. The lack of detail on the Hughes map for the lakes shown on the subject property is striking. In contrast, other water bodies on the Hughes map (beyond the boundaries of the Lafourche Realty property) were depicted in minute detail with measured depths and with more meticulous renditions of the surrounding topography. See L.R. Ex. 43. Dr. Gagliano based his opinion in part on Captain Hughes's detailed field notes, which were devoid of a description of the four shallow lakes shown on the Hughes map. 3 Dr. Gagliano also regarded the series of maps drafted after the Hughes map from 1842 until about 1872 as copy-cat maps; they picked up the lakes sketched on the Hughes map, but the configuration of lakes on such maps was derived from very poor information. 22 R. 75-76, 81. Dr. Gagliano opined that the Lafourche Realty property was historically floating trembling prairie, a category of land. Finally, some evidence suggested that the township surveyors indeed meandered the water bodies in preparing the official surveys, contrary to Mr. Coates's opinion. 9 The finding that the disputed land included no navigable water bodies in 1812 is based on substantial evidence. The court's decision to credit Dr. Gagliano's opinion and accord little weight to the testimony of Mr. Coates is not clearly erroneous. See Gulf Consol. Servs., 898 F.2d at 1077.
10 The State next argues that the district court applied an incorrect legal standard to determine navigability. The State urges that the court ignored the test of Ramsey River Road Property Owners Ass'n, Inc. v. Reeves, 396 So.2d 873 (La.1981), namely, whether a water body may be used in its ordinary condition as a highway for commerce over which trade and travel may be conducted in the customary modes of trade and travel on water given the means of navigation at that time. 396 So.2d at 876. Considering nineteenth century means of navigation in south Louisiana, the State argues, the court should have easily found navigability. 11 The district court, specifically noting that under Ramsey River certain shallow water bodies may be wide enough and contain enough water flow ... to sustain commercial activity such as floating lumber from a nearby sawmill, found, the Lafourche Realty Property before 1902 did not contain any such water body. Even under a floating-lumber test of navigability, 4 the court determined that no navigable water bodies existed on the property. The State's claim that the court exacted too strict a standard of navigability is without merit. Accordingly, there is no error in the finding and conclusion that Louisiana acquired none of the Lafourche Realty property as navigable water bottoms in 1812.
12 Phillips Petroleum held that lands beneath waters influenced by the ebb and flow of the tide, whether navigable or not, were within the public trust and transferred to the new states upon their entry into the Union. 484 U.S. at 479-81, 108 S.Ct. at 796-97. The State contests the district court's finding that none of the land was subject to the ebb and flow of the tides in 1812. We need not address this factual finding. The State owned all the land at the time it transferred the parcels to Lafourche Realty's ancestors-in-title, either under the equal footing doctrine (described in Phillips Petroleum ) or under the Swamp Land Grant Act, which conveyed swamp lands subject to overflow to the State. Whether the State continues to own any ebb-and-flow tidelands is a question of alienability, not acquisition. 13