Court Opinion

ID: 9760141
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:41:03.859786+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:20:36.781288
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Smith
dissenting.
This case being before us on motion for rehearing, I have concluded to withdraw my original dissenting opinion and substitute the following therefor. Originally, I was content to note my dissent without writing fully upon some of the questions which I thought were incorrectly decided. Reference was made to my dissenting opinion in Rudder v. Ponder, 156 Texas 185, 293 S.W. 2d 736, 743. In that case, it was my contention that the law as incorporated in Las Siete Partidas applied and that the rights of the parties must be determined by the civil law in effect at the time of the grant. It was my impression that several members of this Court agreed with me on this point, but agreed with Mr. Justice Griffin that the land certificates issued in 1837 created an incomplete, inchoate, and equitable right which did not become vested (until a patent therefor was issued) in 1841, a date subsequent to the adoption of the common law of England. Therefore, for that reason only, the seaward boundary of the land was controlled by the rule of the common law, and that under the common law the seaward boundary of the land extended to the point of the mean high tide. The controlling question in the Rudder case, supra, is not in the instant case. Therefore, it seems to me that this Court should be in agrément that whatever is written, whether it be dicta or what not, should be in harmony with the civil law, and it should be made clear that the common law has no application. When such a rule is followed, then the question raised by some that there is little difference between the civil law and the common law in determining the question of whether the “mud-flats” involved in this *541suit have accreted to the mainland and become “fast land,” and hence belongs to J. W. Luttes et al. or have remained a part of the bed and shores of the sea, and, therefore, belongs to the State of Texas.
In determining the issue in this case, we should not lose sight of what this case is about, and the principles of law which should primarily control in determining the rights of parties in a trespass to try title suit.
The petitioners, Luttes et al., brought this trespass to try title suit against the State of Texas. The land sought to be recovered was described by metes and bounds and alleged to comprise some 4,086.61 acres. The land was alleged to be located in Cameron County, Texas, along the east or Laguna Madre side of the original Mexican Patrero de Buena Vista Grant made by the State of Tamaulipas, Republic of Mexico, to Manuel de la Garza Sosa in the year 1829. This grant was a riparian one fronting upon and being bounded on the east by the Laguna Madre, a comparatively shallow bay, or arm of the Gulf of Mexico, located between Padre Island on the east and the mainland of Texas on the west. Petitioners, Luttes et al., based their claim of title to the mud-flats upon claimed accretions to the portion of the mainland covered by such grant.
The State of Texas answered this contention of petitioners with a general denial and a plea of not guilty of the wrongs, charges, and trespasses alleged in petitioners’ petition. At the close of the evidence, petitioners, Luttes et al., filed a motion for judgment for a specific area of 3365.52 acres of land, “* * * including all lands within said metes and bounds that have been added to the open face of Potrero de Buena Vista grant on Laguna Madre through slow and gradual processes of accretion and reliction, and imperceptible deposit of alluvion, since said Potrero de Buena Vista grant was released and relinquished by the Legislature of the State of Texas to Manuel de la Garza Sosa, under whom plaintiffs hold and claim the lands above described.” The State of Texas also filed its motion for judgment (1) that the plaintiffs recover nothing and that all costs be taxed against plaintiffs, and (2) in the alternative that the “judgment should provide that the boundary line between the Luttes property and the State’s property should be fixed at the line near the foot of the mainland bluff where the mud flats end and the upland begins.” The trial court granted the State’s motion and denied the Luttes et al. motion for judgment. Judgment was rendered that Lutes et al. take nothing by reason of their suit and the fee *542simple title was vested in the State of Texas. The land was described in the judgment by metes and bounds as being 4086.61 acres of land. The metes and bounds description is the same in the judgment as the metes and bounds description contained in the Lutes et al. petition upon which the case went to trial.
It was undisputed, and it was agreed between the parties that the plaintiffs-petitioners J. W. Luttes owned title to all of such Mexican Grant which was relevant to a determination of the issues in suit. In other words, Luttes owned the upland adjacent to the land sued for without dispute. Of course, the ownership was subject to an oil and gas lease in favor of petitioner, Shell Oil Company. It was and is admitted that the mud-flats area (4086.61 acres) in controversy was not a portion of the original Mexican Grant. The burden rested upon Luttes et al. to establish by competent evidence that since the original grant was made, the mud-flat area sued for as it now exists had been added to the upland grant now owned by Luttes through the slow and gradual process of accretion and reliction and that such area thereby became a part of the Texas mainland, and particularly the Luttes land lying west of the area sued for.
Thus, an issue of fact was presented. The trial court without the aid of a jury concluded that the area involved had not been shown to have accreted to the mainland, as contended for by Luttes et al. and that such area had not in fact become a part of the mainland, but, in fact, remained a part of the bed and shores of the sea and belonged to the State of Texas. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed the judgment of the trial court. 289 S.W. 2d 357. The Court of Civil Appeals minutely and in great detail points out wherein the petitioners-plaintiffs failed to discharge their burden of proving title tc- the land in dispute. The question of accretion has been correctly decided adversely to all contentions made by Luttes et al. Therefore, there is no question as to the ownership of the 4086.61 acres sued for. The only remaining question, if it has been properly raised, is the location of the shore line of Laguna Madre along the Buena Vista Grant. Simply stated, where is the shoreline between the upland owned by Luttes et al. and the 4086.61 acres awarded to the State of Texas in this suit. If, in the opinion of the Court, this question cannot be litigated in a new suit, and that the determination here adversely to petitioners Luttes et al. would be res adjudicata, then the issue as to the shoreline should be sent back to the trial court with instructions as to how the issue should be tried. Under no circumstances should the petitioners, Luttes et al., be permitted to relitigate the accretion issue, *543neither should the case be returned to the Court of Civil Appeals. There are other reasons why the case should not be remanded to the Court of Civil Appeals. In the first place, if the Court of Civil Appeals had before it a “weight and preponderance of the evidence” point, then the opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals clearly shows that such point was adjudicated by and overruled by that court. Secondly, I contend that the Court of Civil Appeals had no such point before it on original consideration, and the question was not raised until petitioners filed a motion for rehearing in that court. I have carefully checked the six points presented by petitioners in the Court of Civil Appeals. Some of the points amount to no evidence points, and the prayer contained in petitioners-appellants’ brief conforms to the points and reads as follows:
“Wherefore, appellants pray judgment of this Honorable Court reversing the judgment of the Trial Court and rendering judgment for the appellants for said tract of 3,365.52 acres.”
This prayer conforms to the argument and statement contained in the briefs. Throughout the brief the statement is made —“there is no evidence” or the evidence is undisputed or “all the evidence shows * * Nowhere do they urge that the findings of the trial court are so against the overwhelming weight and preponderance of the evidence as to be manifestly unjust. Thus, it is seen that the rule in In Re: King’s Estate, 150 Texas 662, 244 S.W. 2d 660, has no application in the instant case. I seriously doubt that the petitioners raise the question in this Court.
I find eleven points of error and the eleventh one is the only point that in any manner raises the question. That point reads:
“In failing and refusing to pass upon the sufficiency of the evidence to support findings by the trial court that the land in controversy are not fast land and that it is impossible to apportion the accretions between the mainland and the islands.”
There was no similar point before the Court of Civil Appeals. I repeat that the only points were what we commonly call “no evidence” points. This being true, the Court of Civil Appeals, among other things, stated in its opinion that it was deciding the case in accordance with the rules announced in the cases of Cavanaugh v. Davis, 149 Texas 573, 235 S.W. 2d 972, 977; Woodward v. Ortiz, 150 Texas 75, 237 S.W. 2d 286.
*544In the instant case, the Court of Civil Appeals said: “Since this cause was tried without the aid of a jury, we must approach our task in the light of certain well established rules.” Then it proceeded to follow the only rule applicable to the points before it. It said:
“First of all, judgment by the trial court will not be set aside if there is any evidence of a probative nature to support it, and a Court of Civil Appeals cannot substitute its findings of fact for those of the trial court if there is any evidence in the record to sustain the trial court’s findings.”
Following this rule, the court then held that the findings of the trial court were supported by probative evidence and affirmed the judgment. However, if it could possibly be said that a “preponderance of the evidence” point was before that court then the court decided that point adversely to the petitioners when it said: “Since the trial court found that appellants failed to carry their burden in this behalf, it is our view that considering the testimony on the whole, we should not set aside the findings of the trial court.” The court made it clear, it seems to me, that it went further than required and complied with the rule in the King case, supra, wherein it was held “The evidence supporting the verdict is to be weighed along with the other evidence in the case, including that which is contrary to the verdict.” It seems to me that when the court says “considering the testimony as a whole” it should be taken to mean that the court considered all the evidence. This should be especially so since the Court of Civil Appeals overruled petitioners’ motion for rehearing. As heretofore pointed out, the petitioners for the first time urged preponderance of the evidence points in their motion for rehearing. In that motion they still prayed that the judgment of the trial court be reversed and rendered, but did not pray that the judgment be remanded. The Court of Civil Appeals followed the rule in the Cavanaugh v. Davis case, supra, wherein we said: “The rule is well settled that the j udgment of a trial court will not be set aside if there is any evidence of a probative nature to support it and that a Court of Civil Appeals cannot substitute its findings of fact for those of the trial court if there is any evidence in the record to sustain the trial court’s findings.”
The petitioners rested their case almost entirely upon the testimony of Dr. Lohse, and they argued that there was no evidence of probative force to the contrary. The trial court, the *545Court of Civil Appeals, and this Court have overruled such contention. This should end the litigation.
Reverting to the question of sending the case back to the trial court for a new trial on the issue as to the location of the shoreline, of course, this cannot be done unless this court has found error sufficient to reverse the judgment.
In the event the case is remanded, then I express the following views which, in my opinion, should be adopted by this Court as a guide for the trial court in determining the location of the shoreline.
We should not overrule the language in many early cases and hold that the common-law line and the civil-law line are the same. The shoreline should be determined according to the civil law. This line cannot, under any circumstances, be accurately determined by the use of the tide gauge. According to the provisions of Las Siete Partidas, the seashore is the land that is covered with water from time to time. The Spanish verb “cubrir” is used, which means “to cover.” The seashore, then, is that portion that is alternately covered and uncovered by the sea. The height of the water on the tide gauge is not the same as the height of the water that rolls up or is blown up on the shore. The tide gauge might be used to establish prima facie the location of the shoreline, but it should always be held to only be prima facie evidence of the true line. Such presumptive evidence may be destroyed by the facts. In other words, the question of the location of the shoreline is one of fact and not one of law. There is nothing in the Partidas definition dealing with tide gauge. What I am contending for here does not in the least conflict with the holding by the Supreme Court of the United States in the famous case of Borax, Ltd. v. Los Angeles, 296 U.S. 10. In fact, Chief justice Hughes carefully reviewed the civil law in the Borax case, and held that the civil-law shoreline and the common-law shoreline were not the same. See also 65 C.J.S. 194: Gould on Waters. The tide gauge would be wholly inaccurate to establish the true seashore line.
The Partidas definition is apropos to consider at this point:
“Every man can build a house or a hut on the seashore where he can find shelter whenever he wishes; he can also build there another edifice whatsoever for his own benefit, provided the common use [of the seashofe] of the people is not hampered; and he can construct galleys and any other kind of ships and dry *546nets there and make new ones if he desires-to do so; and-so long as he is working there or is -present, no one else should molest him so that he cannot use and be benefited by all these things, and by- others like them, -in the manner aforesaid; and all that place is called - seashore which is covered with the water of . the sea when it grows more (or swells) during the entire ■ year, whether in winter or in summer.” Law IV, Title 28, Partidas III; the Civil law which is controlling in this case.
This definition is that the-seashore is a place where every man may build a house or other building, build boats and dry nets. Very few men would want to build houses out in the water and none would want to stand in the water while building their boats, and most conclusive of all, none would attempt to dry his nets in water or even on the wet portion of the beach.
The Lopez footnotes or glossary are set out in Appendix No. 6 of the Professor’s work at page 11a. Footnote No. 4 is the one mainly in point. Here Professor Martinez-Lopez translates from the Latin a footnote as setting the boundary line “as far as the highest of the swells (meaning the single highest swell [fluctus] boils up throughout the entire year, during the winter as well as during the strong windy storms of the summer.” To back up his translation, the Professor adds this footnote at page 12a: “This passage (dealing with the single highest swell) the translator considered of such crucial importance that in order to render it with the greatest possible accuracy he availed himself of the learned counsel and advice of the eminent specialist in Roman law Dr. Clyde Pharr, distinguished Professor of the Classical Languages Department of the University of Texas. Dr. Pharr was employed by the American Bar Association and by the University of Princeton to prepare a new revised translation of the whole body of Roman law (Corpus Juris Civilis). He is probably the highest living authority in America on these matters.”
Lopez makes a sensible interpretation by pointing out that the Partidas definition did not include extraordinary flows which Judge Holmes in Humble v. Sun says sometimes sweep as much as fifty miles inland, but he states that the seashore does extend as far as the greatest wave boils up, during a violent wind, regardless of the time of the year when the wave appears.
It seems to be unassailable that the civil law contemplated the area actually reached by the sea, though only a single swell. If the tide gauge is accepted as the absolute determinate in placing or locating the shoreline, then we are establishing a *547rather artificial line. This- is proved by a letter contained at pages 57, et seq. of Brief for the Petitioners, which is a reply from the Assistant Director of the U. S. Coast and Goedetie Survey, to queries by petitioners. This letter points out that “the height of water -recorded by our tide gauges is the approximate still water height and is not the height of the waves that roll or are blown up on the shore.” It is evident from a study of the letter that no statement is made about the vegetation line; rather, the terms used are “tidal datum planes.” These planes obviously could not coincide with different heights of water due to local conditions, which would be indicated by the vegetation line. Petitioners, Luttes et al., admit this when they state that “high water at the Brazosport (Freeport) area averages at least six-tenths (.6) of a foot higher than at Galveston; and, of course, local conditions could cause a greater temporary variation on any given day.”
The height of the waters differs all over the Gulf of Mexico. Their height depends on such things as prevailing winds, the types of openings in bays, etc. Heights of water may differ even on opposite shores of a bay. In other words, a strong wind will tend to drive it off of a shore on the windward side and pile it up on the opposite shore.
In addition, there is evidence that different tide gauges register differently. This is because of the variable sizes of the hole through which the water pours into the well of the gauge. If the hole is small, the gauge will be less likely to register sudden rises or. drops in the height of the waters.
We then must consider that tide gauges cannot be located at every nook and cranny of the vast Texas coast, due to their great expense. To permit the surveyors to rely on mathematical computations using such sparsely located tide gauges as are available, in order to determine the shoreline at any given point, would add artificiality to artificiality. There seems to be no logical formula to replace the civil law rule of determining each case on its own facts. One widely recognized authority on the subject of seashore boundaries has the following to say:
“ ‘The line of residue left as a deposit by the waters of the sea is so firmly and definitely fixed by nature, acting over a long period of years, as a mark not to be ignored by a layman, a surveyor or a court. * * *’ ”
- “ ‘Every person of normal intelligence who is an inhabitant *548of the coast, any surveyor ■ seeking facts will find this line of drift along the toe of slope of the small shelf or bench along the entire Texas coast except in those rare instances where we find a clay bluff extending from the upland to the waters of the sea, even here you will find the line of drift, shells, seaweed, dead fish, crabs and other marine life. This line of drift is along the bottom of the small shelf or bench seldom over a foot to a foot and half high, on top of this shelf from its edge inland is covered by upland growth, from the toe of the same seaward is 99% of the time nothing but bare sand over which the sea rises and falls with such frequency as to make the ground or beach of such saline content as to prohibit the growth of vegetation. This is the area inhabited by fiddler crabs and sea fleas and sea lice, which cannot survive in sweet water. The bench or shelf created by God Almighty, not by tide gauges, surveyors or level rods— is nature’s answer to the boundary between sea and upland.’ ”
Thus it would seem that we do not need to feel constrained to adopt an artificial rule when there is a very workable and natural one available. If the common-law line of mean high tide, rather than the civil-law shoreline, is adopted, it will mean that on the average day, when the high tide rolls in, the entire beach area belonging to the public would be covered with water. One wishing to spend the day or the night at the beach would have to stay in the water at high tide or be a trespasser. Would it not be the better part of wisdom to set the line at the high water mark, the vegetation line, so that this result could be avoided? Both the practicalities and the law of the case forecefully indicate that the arbitrary rule based on the tide gauge is undesirable.
There is the sea and there is the seashore, both of which belong to the State. As stated in the Balli case, the seashore has always been deemed an adjunct of the sea. Clearly, a seashore as defined in the Partidas means the beach area up to the vegetation line. That is the line on the ground where the sea and its adjunct, the shore, end and the upland begins.
But, petitioners say, let the coastal counties condemn the beaches for the public’s use. This plan, of course, would impose an intolerable burden upon already over-strained county budgets. Then, again, the petitioners’ suggestion that the public could establish a right by prescription is, on its face, impractical.
I repeat that the tide gauge with its attendant fallibilities should not prevail over the clearly ascertainable facts in any *549given case before the courts of this State. Parties should not be denied their right to have the facts of their case adjudicated on the merits.
Should the Court adopt the vegetation line, it is of course clear that the accretion question would be eliminated from the case, since all parties agree that the flats in dispute are below said line.
My conclusion is that our jurisprudence has accepted the civil-law rule for practically 100 years, and there is no logical reason to now depart from this standard. The majority opinion has been rewritten so as to modify some of its former holdings. Some of the views expressed in the latest majority opinion are now in accord with the views herein expressed. To that extent, I concur with the majority. The judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals affirming the trial court’s judgment should be affirmed.
Opinion delivered December 10, 1958.
ON SECOND MOTION FOR REHEARING