Court Opinion

ID: 9762882
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:33:23.035142+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:38.272064
License: Public Domain

Smith, J.,

dissenting:

I dissent for all of the reasons so lucidly and thoughtfully expressed by Judge Melvin for the Court of Special Appeals *466in Dep’t of Nat. Resources v. France, 28 Md. App. 110, 344 A. 2d 193 (1975), including his conclusions:
1 - That the primary meaning of the word “channel” as set forth in Black’s Law Dictionary (Rev. 4th ed. 1968) and Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1967) is “[t]he bed in which the main stream of a river flows, rather than the deep water of the stream as followed in navigation” and “[t]he hollow bed where a natural body or stream of water runs or may run,” respectively.1
2 - That the term “channel” “[a]s a precise boundary line between counties ... is all but illusory and fosters uncertainty where certainty should exist.”
3 - That it is “more likely that the framers of the 1867 Constitution used the word channel in its primary sense as meaning the great body of water between the banks of the river, and that, by analogy to the common law rule pertaining to *467non-tidal stream boundaries, the intended boundary was a line running along the middle of the river.”
4 - That “it is immaterial which of the two Acts [(Chapter 92 of the Acts of 1704 or Chapter 487 of the Acts of 1908)] applies to the instant case, for in our opinion a proper interpretation of each reaches the same result: The jurisdiction of each county extends to the middle of the river, regardless of the location of the deep-channel line.”
5 - That there is no inconsistency between thjs view and the boundaries of Wicomico County as set forth in Maryland Constitution Art. XIII, § 2 specifying the boundaries of that county.
The majority opinion is based upon the premise:
“that such considerations as ‘the preservation by each [of the bounding jurisdictions] of its equal right in the navigation of a stream’ and the preservation of the ‘free navigation of the river’ were of primary importance in the Province in 1704, when the 11 existing counties, all upon tidewater, were bounded by navigable rivers and were economically dependent on those rivers as ‘highways of water’ for their economic survival. It thus seems clear that it was the intent of the General Assembly, by the express use of the term ‘channel,’ when it enacted Ch. 92 of the Acts of 1704, to extend, and to insure, the jurisdiction of every county, bounding on a navigable river, to the thalweg, or the middle of the main navigable channel of every such river which constituted a boundary between counties.
“The General Assembly patently did not intend that the navigable channel in such a river should lie wholly within the jurisdiction of one or the other of the counties on opposite shores — a result which could conceivably occur — should such boundary be fixed at the geographic mid-point between the *468banks of such a river. It appears to have been in recognition of such mutual jurisdictional rights by the bounding counties, in the use of the channel of such a river, that the Act of 1704 provided for the service of process, by the officers of either of such bounding counties, upon a vessel ‘rid[ing] at Anchor in the Channel of such River.’ ”
Such a premise equates counties with sovereign nations or with other states of the United States. All of the reading I have been able to do on the subject indicates that our counties and their powers were based upon the system prevailing in England at the time of the first settlements. None of the authorities I have reviewed show any legislative power in a county prior to 1776. From the adoption of our Constitution of that year until the advent of “home rule,” a comparatively new doctrine in Maryland, counties never had legislative powers. Wicomico County has had “home rule” only since 1964. Somerset County has never had it.
Prior to the passage of Chapter 129 of the Acts of 1862, about which I shall have more to say, “it had been held that the Lord Proprietary became vested under the Charter of Maryland with title to the soil under navigable waters, that he could convey title thereto and that the State succeeded to these rights. Browne v. Kennedy, 5 Harris & J. 195 [(1821)].” Wagner v. City of Baltimore, 210 Md. 615, 622, 124 A. 2d 815 (1956) . Accretions to land on navigable waters did not become the property of the abutting land owners. Consequently, patents are to be found among the patent records of this State issued to property owners on rivers of the State covering accretions to their land. What was Code (1957) Art. 54, § 45, prior to its repeal by Chapter 241 of the Acts of 1970, provided under the 1862 enactment that “[t]he proprietor of land bounding on any of the navigable waters of this State sh[ould] be entitled to all accretions to said land .. ..” In that circumstance, with Maryland as sparsely settled as it was in 1704 and all authority concentrated in the Lord Proprietor or the Royal Governor (depending upon *469just what year is involved) and the Provincial General Assembly, of what possible concern to a county was the precise location of its boundary line? Of one thing we may be sure, that is that the county as such was without power to interfere with navigation.
I find it much more reasonable to believe that Chapter 487 of the Acts of 1908 was enacted in response to the decision of this Court in Western Maryland Tidewater Railroad Company v. Baltimore City, 106 Md. 561, 68 A. 6 (1907) (actually decided November 13, 1907), than in response to the decision in Taylor v. State, 79 Md. 130, 28 A. 815 (1894), 14 years before the passage of that act. I do not believe the position I take here is to the slightest degree inconsistent with the opinion of Chief Judge Horney in State v. Thomas, No. 50, Criminal Trials, (1957) in the Circuit Court for Queen Anne’s County.
I note that the majority apparently is of the view that the term “navigable waters” as used in the 1908 act does not include the term “navigable river” as used in the 1704 act. “Navigable waters” is defined in Black’s Law Dictionary (Rev. 4th ed. 1968) as “[t]hose waters which afford a channel for useful commerce.” Wagner is clear authority for the proposition that in this State the test for determining navigability is “whether or not the waters in question are tidal.. . .” 210 Md. at 624. The position of the majority that the term “navigable waters” does not embrace a “navigable river” is inconsistent with many of the prior holdings of this Court. See, e.g., Van Ruymbeke v. Patapsco Ind. Park, 261 Md. 470, 475, 276 A. 2d 61 (1971); Owen v. Hubbard, 260 Md. 146, 152-53, 271 A. 2d 672 (1970); and Wagner v. City of Baltimore, supra. In Wagner the Court had before it the proper interpretation to be given to Chapter 129 of the Acts of 1862 which was concerned with the rights of “proprietor[s] of land bounding on any of the navigable waters of this State,” (Emphasis added.) providing, among other things, for such proprietors “to be entitled to the exclusive right of making improvements into the waters in front of [their] said land,” and that “no patent shfould] *470[thereafter issue for land covered by navigable waters.” (Emphasis added.) The controversy there involved neither the Chesapeake Bay nor the Atlantic Ocean, but the Patapsco River. Chief Judge Bruñe there said for the Court:
“Where a stretch of river is navigable lengthwise, we think that all of the waters between the opposite shores or banks are comprehended within the term ‘navigable waters’ as used in Chapter 129 of the Acts of 1862.” Id. at 626.
Thus, it would seem to me that any river which is navigable would fall within the term “navigable waters” as expressed in the 1908 act.
In 1908 the session laws do not seem to have been put together in the same manner as they are today with chapters following in numerical order. Chapter 487 was placed under the heading “Art. 75.] Pleadings, Practice and Process at Law.” Also passed in that year by Chapter 408 and placed under the heading of “Art. 27.] Crimes and Punishments.” was a new section, designated § 433 A, now Code C1957) Art. 27, § 590, providing that a “person who may commit any crimes ... on or at the boundary or divisional line between any of the counties in this State, or so near thereto or where the exact location of such boundary is so uncertain as to render it doubtful in which county the offense was committed, then the county which first assumes jurisdiction by issuing process for the arrest and prosecution of the offender shall have jurisdiction to charge, present, indict, try, convict and sentence; and in such case it shall be only necessary for the State to establish the venue alleged in the information, warrant or indictment, by proving that the offense was at or on the boundary of the county wherein the accused is being tried, or was so near thereto or the location of the boundary is so uncertain as to render it doubtful in which county the crime was committed.”
I think Chapter 487 was enacted for the purpose of provid*471ing a common sense method of determining county lines for the purposes of litigation without the necessity of a complicated survey and the production of expert witnesses. Likewise, Chapter 408 was intended to provide a common sense method for prosecution where the exact situs of a crime in relation to a county boundary was uncertain.

. I have found no dictionary giving a primary meaning to the word “channel” disagreeing with that above. E.g., Webster’s New International Dictionary (2d ed. unabridged 1959) is identical with that cited from Webster above. Other authorities give the primary meaning as: The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Diction ap (1971), “The hollow bed of running waters ..Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language (college ed. 1953), “The bed of a running stream, river, etc.”; The Concise Oxford Dictionary (5th ed. 1964), “Natural or artificial bed of running water”; The Penguin Dictionary of English (1964), “river bed”; and The American College Dictionary (1964), “the bed of a stream or waterway.” Moreover, 14 C.J.S. Channel (1939) states:
“It has been said that the word is a generic term applicable to any watercourse, whether a river, creek, slough, or canal; and that its precise meaning depends upon the context m which it is used, two lines of definitions being generally recognized, the one, employed in boatmen’s parlance, as meaning the course where the water is deepest and the navigation safest; the other, in geographical usage, designating the depression of a bed, below permanent banks, wherein waters flow and which may be sometimes full and sometimes not.” (Emphasis added.) Id. at 397.
It certainly is in “geographical usage,” not in “boatmen’s parlance,” that the term is used in defining the boundaries of a county, whether that definition be in the Constitution or in a statute.