Court Opinion

ID: 9636586
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:34:30.105321+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:47.166436
License: Public Domain

WALLER, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I agree with the majority that the case should go back and the physical facts as to the location of the parcel claimed by the United States in relation to Pinto Island and its natural accretions should be the decisive factors upon which the judgment is based rather than upon harbor maps projected by draftsman or engineers with no thought in mind of making surveys of land or correct delineation of land lines.
But I also entertain some views not expressed in the majority opinion:
1. The case — instituted as one in eminent domain, wherein the burden would have been on the landowner to establish title to any land claimed by him only where there was a contest with other defendants— was converted by the United States into a suit to try title between it and the Defendant, Turner. The Government initially set out toward the goal of acquiring title to the lands by a condemnation suit but now has reversed its field and is trying to run with the ball in the opposite direction. Its assertion that it does not now want condemnation but confirmation of a title that it already owns seems to me to be so utterly and violently inconsistent with proceedings in eminent domain as not to be permissible. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were not applicable to the trial of this case, and I am aware of no law or rule that would permit the joinder of actions so inconsistent as to be repugnant.
2. Even if such a turn-around is permissible, and the Government may now assert title to the land it formerly sought to condemn, the burden is on it, like upon every other plaintiff in a suit to try title, to go forward and to win on the strength of its own title rather than upon any weakness of the title of its adversary. The burden is on it to prove its title and to this end it must show that the land it claims is not a part of Pinto Island, as originally laid out and granted to Turner’s predecessors, or as enlarged by natural accretions through the years. It ought also to show that the lands filled by ship ballast were not merely the reclamation of lands owned by Turner and theretofore dredged out by him in putting it to needful use.
3. My next divergent point of view is that the burden is on the United States for the further reasons that Pinto Island was surveyed by the United States and patented many years ago to the predecessors in title to Mr. Turner and the Government should have the burden of showing, if it intends to claim the land as its own, that the land involved is no part of Pinto Island as granted by the United States or as enlarged by natural accretions to that island.
Furthermore, the evidence shows not only the grant through mesne conveyances to Mr. Turner, but it shows that he has been in the actual possession of the land, not only by the building of a wharf, the driving of piling, the filling in behind piling, but through a watchman or caretaker that he has kept on the land for many years. Con-cededly this possession will not ripen into a bar or a prescriptive title against the United States or the Slate of Alabama; nevertheless, it is a universal rule that in a suit for trespass to try title, or in ejectment, the burden is on that one out of possession to show a better right .thereto against one in possession, and even if we disregard the record title, it is undisputed that Turner had been in possession of the land involved for many years, and the *650burden would still be on the United States to prove that it had a superior right or title in order to dispossess Turner.
I think when the case goes back, it should be with instructions to try it only as a suit in trespass to try title with the burden as usual upon the plaintiff.
The upland owner acquires title to all extension to his lands caused by natural accretions, and I take it that when title is once thus acquired he may defend his title against man, the sea, and the elements, and to that end he may artificially reclaim that which either man or nature has taken, or ihas sought to take, away. See Schwartzstein v. B. B. Bathing Park, 203 App.Div. 700, 197 N.Y.S. 490. Owning from the center of the earth to the skies, he does not lose his title to the State because his top soil is gone for a time.
I take it also to be the law that where title to land was acquired by accretion the land belongs as thoroughly to the upland owner as if he had bought and paid for it from the true owner, and that as owner of the title he may put the land to its highest and best use. For instance, he could dredge it out and make a yacht basin wherein to rent space to yacht owners. By thus utilizing his land he would not forfeit it to the State. He could fill up his basin at any time that he ■wished to change the use, and in filling it up he could accept ship ballast or spoil from federal dredging and thus reclaim that which was already ¡his. By the same taken, Turner, a shipper ■of lumber, could construct a wharf on his land for shipping lumber and then dredge ■out the soil so that vessels could reach it. Putting his land to use was not an abandonment, an avulsion, nor an erosion that «changed its boundary or title. By the same .right that he put his land to its best use he .could change that use and reclaim it artificially or otherwise. In other words, the adaptation of his land to this very substantial purpose by the expenditure of large sums in dredging and building a wharf and the maintenance of watchmen and caretakers is the exact opposite of an abandonment and has no relation to erosion, avulsion, or any other similar process of title or boundary involvement.
If it be true that Turner once had title to these lands, he will not lose same by his dredging or by any method known to the law unless the expropriation without compensation here belatedly attempted shall succeed.
In 56 Am.Jur., Waters, § 493, p. 904, it was said:
“But there seems to be no doubt that if the riparian owner owns the fee to the bed of the stream, land newly formed by accretion belongs to him although it extends beyond the shore line as it existed before a washing away of the land which preceded the new. accretion, and that if a navigable river suddenly encroaches upon adjoining private land, the title to the submerged 'portion remains in the former owner. When thereafter such land arises to the surface, whether by the deposit of alluvion or by a change in the channel of the stream, dominion reattaches thereto as if never suspended, and whatever accretions may have been added to the tract belong to its proprietor, as in ordinary cases.”
In City of St. Louis v. Rutz, 138 U.S. 226, 11 S.Ct. 37, 34 L.Ed. 941, it was held that if an island or dry land forms upon that part of a bed of a river which is owned to the center of a stream in fee by the riparian proprietor the same is his property.
The contention of the Government that Turner dredged away a part of Pinto Island so as to make same available to vessels wishing to use his wharf has been argued, but it seems that the making of this portion of Turner’s land navigable by artificial means would not result in the loss of his title thereto, and that this contention of the Government is not supported by the authorities. See 56 Am.Jur., Waters, § 211, p. 673, where it is said that:
“As a general proposition, the proprietor of a non-navigable stream or body of water neither loses any of his own rights therein nor subjects it to any public servitude by rendering it navigable by artificial means.”
The same thing was held by the Supreme Court of Florida in Clement v. Watson, 63 Fla. 109, 58 So. 25, 27, Ann.Cas.1914A, 72, wherein it was said:
*651“The fact that a part of the cove was made navigable by artificial means after it became private property did not take away the right of the owner to control the fishing privileges therein subject to law. See Schulte v. Warren, 218 Ill. 108, 75 N.E. 783, 13 L.R.A.,N.S., 745.
This case is also authority for the proposition that in the United States waters are not regarded as navigable merely because they are affected by the tides, and that tide water must be navigable in fact to be navigable in law. The Court said:
“While the navigable waters in the state and the lands under such waters, including the shore, or space between high and low water marks, are held by the state for the purpose of navigation and other public uses, subject to lawful governmental regulation, yet this rule is applicable only to such waters as by reason of their size, depth, and other conditions are in fact capable of navigation for useful public purposes. Waters are not under our law regarded as navigable merely because they are affected by the tides.”
The Supreme Court of Alabama supports the lower Court in its holding that whether or not the lands in question were under navigable waters was a matter of fact in the case of Sullivan v. Spottswood, 82 Ala. 163, 2 So. 716, 717, wherein it said:
“It is true that the flow and ebb of the tide is not regarded, in this country, as the usual or any real test of navigability; and only operates to impress, prima facie, the character of being public and navigable, and to place the onus of proof on the party affirming the contrary.”
There is no evidence in this case of any avulsion which would have swept away the upland of Turner. In fact, the Government does not claim that there was any such avulsion but that the Defendant dredged away his own upland. As stated above, Turner had a right to improve his property, to dredge it out and to fill it back, but even if there had been an avulsion by hurricane, as the judge below suggested as a possibility, under the holding in State of Missouri v. Nebraska, 196 U.S. 23, 25 S.Ct. 155, 49 L.Ed. 372, avulsion no more changes the1 boundary between private individuals than, it does the boundaries between States. The Court, in so deciding, quoted from Mayor, Aldermen and Inhabitants of New Orleans v. United States, 10 Pet. 662, 9 L.Ed. 573:
“It is equally well settled, that where a stream, which is a boundary, from any cause suddenly abandons its old and seeks a new bed, such change of channel works no change of boundary; and that the boundary remains as it was, in the center of the old channel, although no water may be flowing therein.”
Then follows a quotation from Gould on Waters, Sec. 159:
“But if the change is violent and visible, and arises from a known cause, such as a freshet, or a cut through which a new channel is formed, the original thread of the stream continues to mark the limits of the two estates.”
So even if there were an avulsion in Mobile Bay which changed the contour of the land, in the absence of abandonment or some sort of an estoppel, the boundaries would be the same, and Turner’s title would remain within that same boundary, subject to being filled by alluvion or reclaimed by him through artificial means.
In Goforth v. Wilson, 208 Ark. 35, 184 S.W.2d 814, it was held that in an avulsion the boundaries of the riparian owner do not change with the course of the stream.
I agree that a new trial should be had, but that it should be in conformity to the views which I have attempted to set out.