Court Opinion

ID: 9432115
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:34:15.010525+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:31.875678
License: Public Domain

Justice White,
with whom Justice Marshall joins, dissenting in part.
I join all but Part VI of the Court’s opinion. In that Part, the Court sustains Georgia’s exception to the Special Master’s use of the “right-angle” principle to delimit the boundary between the two States where there is an island in the river belonging to Georgia. Where this is the case, the boundary line is not a line equidistant from the mainland shores of the two States as it otherwise would be, but a line equidistant from the island bank and the South Carolina shore. In particular dispute is Pennyworth Island, an island belonging to Georgia just north of the city of Savannah and in existence when the Treaty of Beaufort was signed. The Special Master recommends that the boundary at Pennyworth be the island-South Carolina shore center line only so long as some part of Pennyworth is opposite the shore, but when that is not the case, the boundary reverts, at right angles to the shore-to-shore center line.
This is an eminently reasonable approach, it seems to me. Furthermore, it is faithful to the Court’s decision in 1922. There the Court ruled as follows: “(1) Where there are no islands in the boundary rivers the location of the line between the two States is on the water midway between the main banks of the river when the water is at ordinary stage; (2) Where there are islands the line is midway between the island bank and the South Carolina shore when the water is at ordi*411nary stage . . . Georgia v. South Carolina, 257 U. S. 516, 523. Thus the boundary line at any point is determined by reference to just two banks, either the two main banks or the island and South Carolina banks. This cannot be carried out by any method other than the Master’s right-angle approach.
Georgia’s approach, which the Court adopts, would deviate from the main bank-to-bank center line far short of where any part of the island is opposite the South Carolina shore. This point, it is said, is a point “tri-equidistant” from the South Carolina shore, the island shore, and the Georgia shore — thus referring to three banks rather than two. It is true that from that point onward the boundary line as it circumscribes the island would at any point be equidistant from the island and South Carolina banks, but the point at which the shore-to-shore center line ceases to be the boundary at either end of the island requires reference to the two mainlands and the island. Using Georgia’s approach, the boundary is no longer exclusively determined by either the two mainlands or the island and the South Carolina banks.
Georgia complains that the Master had no authority for his position but he did his best to follow the 1922 decision, noting that in that case Georgia pressed the position that it now urges — that when the island-South Carolina bank center line passes the ends of the island it “deflects” and continues until at some point it meets the center line between the two main banks. The Court, as the Master noted, did not endorse this position, for it made no mention of “deflection.” Rather, as I have said, it defined the boundary everywhere with reference either to the two main banks or the island-South Carolina banks.
Furthermore, the Master was convinced that Georgia’s position would unfairly deprive South Carolina of the ownership of some riverbed that does not lie between the island and the South Carolina shore. The Court concedes that there is no precedent for Georgia’s position, fails to give any deference to the Master’s view of what is a “fair” resolution of the issue, *412and, as I see it, misreads Georgia v. South Carolina, supra. With all due respect, I dissent.