Mexico Beach Corp. v. St. Joe Paper Co.

• Decision Date: 05 November 1957
• Docket Number: No. A-69,A-69
• Citation: 97 So.2d 708
• Parties: MEXICO BEACH CORPORATION, a Florida corporation, Appellant, v. ST. JOE PARER COMPANY, a Florida corporation, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 708

97 So.2d 708

MEXICO BEACH CORPORATION, a Florida corporation, Appellant, v. ST. JOE PARER COMPANY, a Florida corporation, Appellee.

No. A-69.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

Nov. 5, 1957.

Rehearing Denied Nov. 22, 1957.

William B. Leath, Panama City, and E. E. Calloway, Blountstown, for appellant.

J. Lewis Hall, Tallahassee, for appellee.

WIGGINTON, Judge.

The appellee, St. Joe Paper Company, brought suit in the Circuit Court of Bay County against appellant, Mexico Beach Corporation, for the purpose of quieting title to certain lands bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. It is from a summary decree for plaintiff that this appeal is taken.

There is no dispute as to the facts: Fractional Section 15, Township 6 South, Range 12 West, was duly and regularly surveyed by the Federal Government in 1833, and a plat thereof filed in the General Land Office. According to this plat, fractional Section 15 contains 624.23 acres, the West half of the southern boundary of which borders on the Gulf of Mexico. This land was conveyed by the United States to the State of Florida by patent dated September 18, 1856, at which time it contained little, if any, more than the 624.23 acres recited in the aforementioned plat. Subsequently, between 1865 and 1869, certain new lands were formed by gradual and imperceptible degrees along the water boundary of this fractional Section. These new lands have never been surveyed or designated by the United States Government or the State of Florida as coming within the bounds of any prescribed Township or Section. It is this tract of land, to which appellee claims title and for which its suit to quiet title was brought, that forms the subject matter of this cause.

On April 17, 1883, some fourteen years after the land in controversy had been formed, the State of Florida conveyed 'All of section * * * fifteen * * * Township six South of Range twelve west', to appellee's predecessor in title. Title to the said Section passed to appellee by subsequent mesne conveyances variously describing the land as 'Fractional Section 15', 'Section 15', and 'All Section 15'. At the date of the conveyance by the State the alluvial lands were of more than sufficient quantity to render fractional Section 15 a complete and entire section of 640 acres if such could have been accomplished by protracting its southern boundary line westward and its western boundary southward to a point of intersection. Such a procedure would have resulted in additional lands remaining South of the protracted lines, which lands would lie between the protracted south boundary and the Gulf of Mexico.

Briefly stated, it is appellant's position that the deed from the State of Florida, as grantor, passed title only to that tract of land described by the aforementioned plat as containing 624.23 acres, or, at most, only such additional lands as may have been necessary to render fractional Section 15 a complete, square section containing 640 acres. And, therefore, title to the remaining lands continues in the State of Florida. Appellee contends that all the lands in question, having been formed by accretion, became an increment to the land described in the original survey, and that title thereto passed to the various grantees in conveyances of title to fractional Section 15. It was upon the issue thus formed that the Chancellor found for appellee and entered his summary decree quieting title to all the questioned lands in appellee.

Appellant's contention that the State conveyed to its immediate successor in title a square section containing 640 acres is untenable. Sections and boundaries are created by Government survey and not merely designated thereby. ¹ Having been surveyed and created as a fractional section, the boundaries of Section 15 cannot be arbitrarily projected so as to make it a complete section containing the customary 640 acres. Appellee must either succeed in its claim to all the lands in question, or it must take none of them.

The parties by their pleadings and proofs, and the trial court by its decree, are in agreement that the lands in question are alluvion formed by accretion as distinguished from avulsion. ² If this be true the rules of law governing accretions must control our decision.

In the Roman Law it was said: 'Alluvion is an addition of soil to land by a river, so gradual that in short periods the change is imperceptible; or, to use a common expression, a latent addition.' ³ Justinian says: 'That is added by alluvion, which is added so gradually that no one can perceive how much is added at any one moment or time.' ⁴ This same rule was introduced into English jurisprudence. The doctrine, as set forth in the English cases, is that accretion is the process of addition to land coterminous with the water, which is formed so slowly that its progress cannot be perceived, and does not admit of the view that, in order to be accretion, the formation must be one not discernible by comparison at two distinct points of time. ⁵

In his treatment of the subject, Blackstone has this to say: ⁶ 'And as to lands gained from the sea, either by alluvion, by the washing up of sand and earth, so as in time to make terra firma; or by a dereliction, as when the sea shirks back below the usual water mark; in these cases the law is held to be, that if this gain be by little and little, by small and imperceptible degrees, it shall go to the owner of the land adjoining. For de minimus non curat lex; and besides, these owners being often losers by the breaking in of the sea, or at charges to keep it out, this possible gain is therefore reciprocal consideration for such charge or loss.'

In the United States, 'The rule governing additions to land bounded by a river, lake or sea, has been much discussed and variously settled by usage and by positive law. Almost all jurists and legislators, however, both ancient and modern, have agreed that the owner of the land thus bounded is entitled to these additions. By some, the rule has been vindicated on the principles of natural justice, that he who sustains the burden of losses and of repairs, imposed by the contiguity of waters, ought to receive whatever benefits they may bring by accretion; by others, it is derived from the principle of public policy, that it is the interest of the community that all land should have an owner, and most convenient that insensible additions to the shores should follow the title to the shore itself.' ⁷ The common-law rule which vests title to soil formed along navigable waters by accretion or reliction in owners of abutting lands is the rule applicable in Florida. ⁸

It must be observed at the outset that at the time fractional Section 15 was...