Court Opinion

ID: 7971659
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-09 00:55:43.266106+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:34:47.516450
License: Public Domain

LOVELY and BROWN, JJ.
(dissenting).
The decision in this case is so at variance with the law as we understand it that we are unable to concur with the majority of the court. The substantial facts in this case are that plaintiff is the owner of a summer residence on the shores of White Bear lake, with extensive and valuable improvements thereon, and he seeks an injunction restraining defendant, a corporation engaged in storing ice for sale to the people of St. Paul and other distant points, from cutting or removing ice therefrom, upon the asserted equitable claim that its acts in that respect lower the lake one-fourth of an inch each year, and tend to render its shores unsightly and the lake unfit for pleasure. The court below held that the complaint presented no equities; that the damage resulting from a lowering of the lake one-fourth of an inch each year, if amounting to a damage or injury at all, was too trifling to warrant the serious consideration of a court of equity, — and sustained the general demurrer to the complaint. The majority of this court hold to the contrary and reverse the learned district judge. We think our associates are in error, both upon principal and authority.
In those courts where the title to the bed of navigable lakes and rivers is held to be in the state, the waters thereof are also held to be public property, held by the state in its sovereign capacity, as trustee for public use (Lamprey v. State, 52 Minn. 181, 198, 53 N. W. 1139); and the right to take ice for use or sale, or use of the waters for fishing, boating, and other lawful purposes, is common to all, and in such waters or ice the riparian owners have no special or superior right. As said in Peoples v. Davenport, 149 Mass. 322, 324, 21 N. E. 386:
“It is too well settled to be disputed that the property in the great ponds is in the commonwealth; that the public have the right to use them for fishing, fowling, boating, * * * cutting ice for use or sale, and other lawful purposes; and that the owners of the shores have no exclusive rights in them.”
Such is the law in this state, unless changed by this decision. Lamprey v. State, supra. In this case it was held, as a result of *55a careful review of the judicial dicta in England and in this country upon this subject, that
“Meandered lakes of this state are not adapted to,_ and probably will never be used to any great extent for, commercial navigation; but they are used — and as population increases, and towns and cities are built up in their vicinity, will be still more used by the people for sailing, rowing, fishing, fowling, bathing, skating, taking water for domestic, agricultural, and even city purposes, cutting ice, and other public purposes which cannot now be enumerated or even anticipated. To hand over all these lakes to private ownership, under any old or narrow test of navigability, would be a great wrong upon the public for all time,” etc.
We heartily concur in this view, and seriously anticipate the result of the majority opinion, in giving to riparian owners the power, by reason of their construction of expensive improvements for private use upon their shore property, to interfere with the common right of the people in these waters, will, as expressed by the learned judge (MITCHELL, J.) in the case last cited, result in “a great wrong upon the public for.all time, the extent of which cannot, perhaps, be now even anticipated.” It was distinctly held in Minneapolis Mill Co. v. Board of Water Commrs. of City of St. Paul, 56 Minn. 485, 58 N. W. 33, that the rights of riparian owners in and to public waters are subordinate and inferior to the public uses thereof. It was further held in that case (COLLINS, J.) that “the right to draw from them a supply of water for the ordinary use- of cities in their vicinity is such a public use, and has always been so recognized.” Such we believe to be the law everywhere, .except in Wisconsin, and perhaps some other states, where the title to the bed of such waters is in the shore owners. ,
The majority opinion gives faint recognition to this principle, but avoids its inevitable logical results on two theories, viz.: First, that the right to take ice from such waters is individual or personal, and must be limited to quantities sufficient for personal or individual use; and, second, that the riparian owner has in fact special and exclusive rights in such waters, measured and fixed by the character of his improvements upon the shore property. We regard both theories as unsound, fallacious, inimical to the public good, and the latter theory as judicial class legislation of a very *56pronounced type. The majority say, in speaking with reference to the rights and privileges of the people to take water or ice from public waters: “This privilege is based upon the consideration of its personal nature. * * * Any man, woman, or child is accorded an equal opportunity in the use of such advantages.” The effect of the holding in this case is to limit the privilege to personal necessities. None of the authorities make any such distinction. They all hold that ice may be taken for use or sale, and we have found no case where the right has been confined to personal or individual uses. The principle, of law applicable to fishing or fowling is applied in the water and ice cases, and no court ever has limited the right to fish or hunt game to personal necessities.
But it is held in the majority view that a necessary distinction exists as to the limit of the use by the public, and that ice cannot be taken by the public from these lakes for such use in unlimited quantities, although we are left entirely in the dark as to what would be a proper or limited use, as distinguished from an improper and unlimited use. The legislature has not regulated this subject, and, if this court can do so, its conclusions must rest wholly upon the facts as alleged in the complaint, — that the quantity taken by defendant, — “more than seventy-five thousand tons o| ice annually, — and after storing a large portion of the same in ice houses for the time being, defendant has shipped away to St. Paul and more distant marts of commerce, and disposed of the same for commercial purposes, at remote points from the shores of said lake, where no part or portion of the same can be returned to said White Bear lake.” And while other causes, as set forth in the complaint, and conceded, have lowered the lake in question to the extent stated in the majority opinion, yet it was admitted by counsel on the hearing that the removal of ice therefrom by the defendant against whom the injunction is sought had only diminished the shore line, by its acts, one-quarter of an inch each year, which seems to us an insufficient basis entirely to destroy a valuable business by injunction, simply because it might be unreasonable in a case where no limit has been fixed upon the common right.
The easy solution that suggests itself, by reason of the capacity *57of one person to take more ice than another, where no limits are prescribed in the law, is not by injunction to restrain a right which is common, and the effort to do so in this case gives to the shore owner a special privilege, which depends entirely upon the extent of his improvements; and this is the contention of the appellant, for upon no other ground can the relief granted be sustained. And the majority opinion is an adoption of the doctrine, that the riparian owner, by reason of extensive improvements upon his property, placed there for comfort and pleasure during the summer season, has special rights and privileges superior to the public, and other, but less pretentious, shore owners, who have not made improvements of the same character.
We are unable to give weight to the considerations which control the majority of the court. We regard the public waters of this state as the common property of all the people to the extent of such natural and reasonable uses as the necessities of life require, and it seems to us that such uses by the common people are a reality rather than a legal myth, and paramount to the individual whims, caprices, and pleasures of those who adapt their own property to luxuries. Compared to the practical benefits which the use of ice affords to the inhabitants of the cities adjoining White Bear lake, the advantages and pleasures of any shore owner are insignificant. And when a step is taken in the direction of destroying the rights of the many for the exclusive benefit of the few, by means of an injunction restraining the cutting of ice which will result in lowering the lake only one-fourth of an inch, it seems to us that there is a plain requirement for the application of the rule, “De minimis non curat lex.”
If the right to take ice is a public right, as conceded, this court has no authority to say how much or how little any person can take for public use. In the absence of legislative regulation, if any unreasonable use is made of public waters, and a public injury follows, the remedy belongs to the public, as in other cases of public wrongs and nuisances. Inhabitants v. Stoddard, 7 Allen, 158-170. But to concede that ice may be taken from these lakes for common use by “every man, woman and child,” and to hold that such right is limited, or in this case denied, to the defendant, *58without fixing the limit, is, in effect, to give to the public a privilege which they cannot enjoy.
But if the necessity for the use is the test, — and we apprehend that the legislature and the courts can make no other, — there is nothing in the complaint that charges any unreasonable usage beyond such necessity, or extends such appropriation further than the natural and ordinary uses to which the commodity is applied, and we do not suppose that any one will claim that an unnecessary or unreasonable use will be assumed where it is not alleged. If ice cannot be taken in the way adopted by defendant, as set forth in the complaint, for use by the residents of the large cities adjoining White Bear and other lakes in their vicinity, there would seem to be but one resource left, — to manufacture that commodity, as in southern climates, — which would be very expensive, and a deprivation of its benefits to many; and, if the complaint which is upheld in this case furnishes the criterion of limitation to be applied, the means even of ice manufacture must not be taken from the lakes or streams, but the consumer must depend upon the beneficence of heaven, rather than the bounteous earth, to furnish rain for that purpose, before it has fallen into these waters and become a part thereof. This rather far-fetched conclusion seems to us but the logical reductio ad absurdum of the claim presented in the complaint.
We should long hesitate to accept a rule that would work such, an injustice to the inherent rights of our people, and we do not see any particular force in the distinction between the right of the individual living in the cities adjoining the lake to take water or ice therefrom personally, and forbids him the same right when derived through the customary methods. It requires no stretch of fancy to recognize the well-known fact that but few take ice from the public waters, and place the same in receptacles for their consumption. The use of ice by the citizen, which is almost as necessary as water, depends upon the intervention of those who are 'engaged in the business of cutting and storing it for delivery to private persons. In a measure, such persons are the agents of all who need ice, and upon whom the people rely and depend to obtain that necessity. Such a course reduces the price of the commodity, *59and -furnishes benefits much more advantageously than if each individual was required to do that which many are not able to do. And if the private individual has a right to take ice for his own use, and several cannot do the same thing through another, it is, in the way we live and move and have our being at the present day, a very barren right to each.
We do not think there is any weight in the suggestion that there is no outlet to White Bear lake. It is conceded to be a public body of water, and the fact that it has no outlet is wholly irrelevant to the question. The truth undoubtedly is that this lake is fed bj springs, and, like many others of the public waters of this state, by reason of the cultivation of the soil, evaporation, and other causes, has to some extent receded in the quantity of its waters, although by acts of defendant to no greater extent than three inches in twelve years, or one. foot in fifty years.
The principles which we have stated above are not new, but are supported by an unbroken line of authorities of the most respectable courts in this country. Gould, Waters (3d Ed.) § 191; Brastow v. Rockport, 77 Me. 100; Woodman v. Pitman, 79 Me. 456, 10 Atl. 321; McFadden v. Haynes, 86 Me. 319, 29 Atl. 1068; Inhabitants v. Stoddard, 7 Allen, 158; Paine v. Woods, 108 Mass. 160; Hittinger v. Eames, 121 Mass. 539; Wood v. Fowler, 26 Kan. 682; Bosse v. Thomas, 3 Mo. App. 472; Brown v. Cunningham, 82 Iowa, 512, 48 N. W. 1042.
The majority opinion is based in part on Sp. Laws 1881, c. 410, and it is urged that the taking of ice from this lake amounts to an artificial lowering thereof, within the meaning- of that law. While it is true that all public waters belong to the state as trustees for the whole people, and that the legislature may regulate their use, yet, if the statute referred to gives the right to prohibit the common use in opposition to those natural rights of man which transcend even the constitutional right of the citizen, it is invalid. Upon this subject we adopt the very vigorous and appropriate language of Chief Justice Beck in Brown v. Cunningham, 82 Iowa, 512, 516, 48 N. W. 1042.
“The government has no more property in the water than a *60riparian owner or the public. The beneficent Creator opened the fountains which filled the stream for the benefit of His creatures, and has bestowed no power upon man or governments created by man to defeat His beneficence. Of course, the use of the water may be regulated by the state, but the state may not forbid its use to the people. As streams of water begin ex jure naturae, they are subject, as to course and use, only to nature’s law.”
But it seems to us perfectly absurd to attribute to the legislature, in enacting this statute, an intention to prohibit or guard against the minor results that follow the cutting of ice, as is charged in the complaint. The cases cited in the majority opinion in support of the views of the court do not, in our judgment, sustain its conclusions. In the cases so cited it is held that a direct injury or trespass to the riparian owner, caused by the interference with the natural course'of the water, is the subject of legal remedy. The distinction between those cases and the one at bar seems to us apparent. It is the broad difference between the act of a trespasser interfering with the natural flow of the water and a person exercising a common and natural right. The order of the trial court should be affirmed.