Court Opinion

ID: 9663808
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:51:43.212731+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:57.173348
License: Public Domain

Brennan, J.
(dissenting). The parties to this lawsuit have entered into a stipulation of facts which is as follows:
“This controversy concerns riparian property rights on Gun lake which is situated partly in Barry county, and partly in Allegan county, Michigan, and which the parties hereto agree has approximately 2.680 acres of surface area and approximately 30 miles of shoreline and is used primarily for recreational purposes.
“The defendant and appellant corporation is a contract purchaser of a riparian parcel of land having approximately 1,415 feet of frontage on said lake and the individual defendants and appellants are the sole stockholders of said corporation. The plaintiffs and appellees are owners of properties abutting on Gun *694lake and possess riparian rights to said lake and use the waters thereof for recreational purposes. The State has intervened herein by the attorney general as amicus curiae and is the owner of a large parcel of land abutting Gun lake and possessing riparian rights thereto.
“The defendants and appellants are developing their parcel into a plat of from 144 to 153 lots of which approximately 16 will abut directly on Gun lake. The remaining lots would, if developed according to the appellants’ plans, front on canals connected to the lake and the owners would have access to the lake for recreational purposes. These lots would have approximately 11,000 feet of frontage on these canals.
“Appellees’ exhibit attached to their amended complaint substantially reflects the appellants’ development. Appellants propose and intend to grant to the purchaser of each lot fronting on these canals the right and privilege of using the surface of Gun lake for recreational purposes in common with plaintiffs and the owners of all other lots abutting on said lake.
“When the appellees became aware that the appellants’ development had commenced, they filed their complaint with the trial court, claiming that the appellants’ proposed development would constitute an infringement upon the rights of appellees as riparian owners of Gun lake and seeking a declaratory judgment to the effect that the appellants’ actions constituted an illegal invasion of appellees’ rights. Both parties moved for summary judgment and the trial court on January 26, 1965, entered a judgment in favor of the appellees, from which judgment this appeal is taken.”
. Based on this stipulation of facts, the Court of Appeals heard arguments in the cause and rendered its opinion on March 9, 1966, reversing the trial court and directing that judgment be entered for the defendants. Thompson v. Enz, 2 Mich App 404.
*695The attorney general of the State of Michigan has filed a brief amicus curiae in this canse in which it is stated, among other things, that the development proposed by the defendants would have an adverse effect on the level of the water in the lake. Amicus curiae must accept the issues framed by the actual parties to the lawsuit.
There has been no allegation here as to the effect of the development upon the level of the water in the lake nor any other specific adverse effect which might flow from defendants’ development. Our decision in this case must be predicated upon the assumption that the development proposed by defendants will not lower the level of the water 'in the lake nor will it have any other specific deleterious effect thereon. The case is presented as one purely upon rights in land.
Plaintiffs have argued that a riparian proprietor owning property along the shore of an inland lake cannot legally extend riparian rights to back lot owners by means of an artificial canal. Defendants argue that riparian rights already enjoyed can be reserved and conveyed in connection with the sale of back lot parcels.
Plaintiffs correctly cite cases which stand for the undisputed proposition that lands, to have riparian rights, must abut upon the water (and that lands which do not have riparian rights cannot accede to them by reason of the creation of an artificial canal) Thus, if the defendant developer were to subdivide his property and convey lots which are not contiguous to the water with no reference in such conveyance to riparian rights, such lots would have no riparian character and could not thereafter be made riparian by the digging of a canal.
That is not the casé here. Here, the developer wishes to subdivide his propertv and convey back *696lots by deeds which will expressly grant easements for rights-of-way, permitting access to the lake through the canal. There is no doubt that a riparian owner can grant an easement over his land to permit a nonriparian owner to have access to the water.
A great many inland lakes in Michigan have been developed in this fashion, where cottages or homes do not have actual lake frontage, but do enjoy, in common with other property owners, the use of a granted or reserved easement providing for access to the water for recreational purposes. If the easement proposed in this case were a road, rather than a canal, no serious issue would be raised concerning. the defendants’ right to convey back lots with such an easement included in the grant.
But the easement here is not a road, it is a canal. And the difficulty here is that an easement over a canal, especially where the dominant estate abuts upon the canal, has many of the advantages and appearances of riparian ownership. Nevertheless, the two are not identical in legal contemplation. If the easement over the canal is limited to use of the canal for access to the lake, canal lot owners could not use the waters of the canal for household purposes, swimming, fishing, water skiing or any of those general purposes normally permitted to riparian owners. Once they get out on the lake, the canal lot owners would not be using the lake as riparian owners, but merely as members of the general public who have availed themselves of a lawful access to the lake.
It can be argued that the proprietor, by expressly permitting all of the usual incidents of riparian ownership, might create easements in the canal which are tantamount to riparian ownership therein.
Still there would remain the legal distinction between rights held by express grant in a deed and *697rights held by virtue of the physical touching of the land by a natural body of water. And there would remain the distinction that the rights granted by easement would be rights in the canal and not in the lake.
It would seem that if the owner of riparian lands can lawfully dig a canal onto his own property, for his own use, he can grant easements in and to the canal to nonriparian property owners. The real issue in this case, then, is: Can this defendant lawfully dig this proposed canal on his property?
Absent statutory regulations to the contrary, mere alteration of the natural shoreline does not per se adversely affect the riparian rights of other owners of lake front property. Seawalls, boat wells, and permanent docks are all examples of alterations of the natural shoreline. No one contends that such improvements infringe upon the riparian rights of other owners in the absence of specific allegations of harm flowing therefrom, as for example, if a dock were to be of such length as to interfere with traffic upon the lake. Generally, riparian rights comprise such uses of the waters as do not deprive other riparian owners of the same uses.
Whether the dredging of any given canal by a riparian owner constitutes an infringement upon the riparian rights of the other riparian owners is a question of fact.
Will the lake level be lowered?
Will the lake be polluted?
Will the fish die, or the birds fly away, or the lake bottom become rocky or mucky or weedy?
In short, these riparian plaintiffs have the burden of alleging and proving some actual damage to themselves that will flow from the dredging of the canal.
Such factual questions could have been raised in this case, but they were not.
*698To remand this cause to circuit court for trial upon factual issues never alleged by the parties or framed by the pleadings is to impose upon both plaintiffs and defendants an entirely new lawsuit, and one which neither side has asked for.
A simple and final appellate decision in this case upon the legal questions raised in this case and to which the parties have limited themselves will leave other plaintiffs, including the State of Michigan, quite free to begin a different lawsuit upon a different theory if they choose to do so.
There is one other point which ought to be discussed here. Plaintiffs claim that the creation of canal lots would per se have an injurious effect upon other property owners in that the boat traffic upon the lake would be increased. It is further assumed, if not argued, that if all of the other property owners were to build canals and subdivide canal lots, there would be an impossible burden of traffic upon the lake. The argument must be conceded. If every other property owner on Gun lake were to develop his land in the fashion proposed by these defendants, we roughly compute a resulting boat population upon Gun lake of approximately 17,000. But this danger of overcrowding must be considered in the light of the fact that the State of Michigan maintains a public park on the shores of Gun lake, and that all of the people of Michigan enjoy the common right to use the waters of our lakes for recreational purposes, whenever lawful access to such lakes is available.
The danger of overcrowding must also be considered in the light of the fact that no statute or ordinance would prevent defendants here from establishing a public boat drop or marina on their property, just as no law limits the number of boats which may be launched by the other riparian owners.
The cottage owners on Gun lake, in common with those on all the other inland lakes of Michigan, face *699an explosion in motorboating. With the increase in the numbers of small craft in Michigan, whether launched from trailers, stored in marinas or harbored in canals, will come a host of serious problems, both for the cottage owners and for the members of the public who seek to avail themselves of our recreational waters. The same deluge of motor oil, fumes, and trash which so sorely besets our highways is already appearing on our lakes and rivers.
That the inviting waters of our beautiful peninsula might become polluted in the next generation certainly gives us pause. But the problem cannot be solved by declaring here a rule of law that would vest in lake front property owners the right to limit the number of persons who can enjoy this water wonderland.
Michigan needs wise and forethinking legislation, which will protect our lakes from overcrowding, and the pollution which flows from immoderate use, so that all of the people of the State, including riparian cottage owners, will be able to enjoy our great natural bounty for centuries to come.
In summary then, a riparian owner can alter the natural shoreline of an inland lake by digging a canal, provided that in doing so he does not adversely affect the rights of other riparian owners to the use and enjoyment of the lake. Whether the digging of a canal will have such adverse effect in any given case is a question of fact. Where a riparian owner digs a canal onto his own property without adversely affecting the use and enjoyment of the lake by other riparian owners, he may convey canal lots and grant easements over the canal permitting access to the lake, by canal lot owners. And finally, the mere fact of the increased use of the lake resulting from such a development and the deleterious effects flowing naturally from such in*700creased use, do not, standing alone, constitute an unreasonable infringement upon the riparian rights of other riparian owners.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals should be affirmed, with costs to appellees.
O’Hara, J., concurred with Brennan, J.