NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: strange legal opinion in usa
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2006 Sep 21, 20:49 -0500
"Without going to far afield, consider some kids out fishing in a small
boat, this ruling would make them liable for fishing too near shore and failing
to be observant of the tide. Ridiculous!"
Let's not assume that the most outrageous Internet-inflamed version of this
story is the correct one. The world is not coming to an end. This is not
another case of an "out of control judiciary". It's a relatively straight-forward
matter of riparian rights. If you're interested in this subject, it's really
fascinating with a deep, deep tradition of legal precedents. No little kids
in small boats will be sent to prison just because of this one ruling. And it
protects the rights of property owners from squatters and looters during
flood stages of large rivers.
It's pretty far from the main list topic, so I won't go on too much about
this, but here's a bit of trivia on the law of riparian rights in the US...
Suppose I'm the State of Mississippi and you're the State of Louisiana. The big
river between us has been meandering a bit and my favorite sandbar/island
(where one of my constituents would like to build a chicken farm) has wandered
slowly across the channel over the past 75 years and now it's sitting high and
dry firmly on your (Louisiana) side of the river. So you say, "no way, that
thar is Lousiana mud... go build yer henhouse somewhere else. Now git!". So
we go to court, right? But which court? The local courthouse in Mudpie County?
The State Court of Muddy Sandbar Disputes?? Nope. The very first stop in
this case is the US Supreme Court -- the court with jurisdiction over interstate
boundary disputes. We're accustomed to thinking of the US Supreme Court as
the court with authority over weighty issues of constitutional law. It's
interesting that they also are the court that hears disputes over mudbanks in the
Mississippi River. Here's a little snippet from the New York Times (Nov. 1,
1995):
"The Supreme Court settled one of the country's longer-running boundary
disputes today by ruling unanimously that a seven-mile stretch of river frontage
on the Mississippi River's Louisiana bank actually belongs to Mississippi. In
awarding the uninhabited property known as Stack Island, near Lake
Providence, La., to the state across the river, the Court acted within its "original
jurisdiction," its authority under the Constitution to sit as a trial court
and resolve disputes between states. The Court applied principles of boundary
adjudication it has developed over years of hearing such cases."
Hey, I bet you could use a sextant to survey a river... There. We're back on
topic. :-)
-FER
42.0N 87.7W, or 41.4N 72.1W.
www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com
To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2006 Sep 21, 20:49 -0500
"Without going to far afield, consider some kids out fishing in a small
boat, this ruling would make them liable for fishing too near shore and failing
to be observant of the tide. Ridiculous!"
Let's not assume that the most outrageous Internet-inflamed version of this
story is the correct one. The world is not coming to an end. This is not
another case of an "out of control judiciary". It's a relatively straight-forward
matter of riparian rights. If you're interested in this subject, it's really
fascinating with a deep, deep tradition of legal precedents. No little kids
in small boats will be sent to prison just because of this one ruling. And it
protects the rights of property owners from squatters and looters during
flood stages of large rivers.
It's pretty far from the main list topic, so I won't go on too much about
this, but here's a bit of trivia on the law of riparian rights in the US...
Suppose I'm the State of Mississippi and you're the State of Louisiana. The big
river between us has been meandering a bit and my favorite sandbar/island
(where one of my constituents would like to build a chicken farm) has wandered
slowly across the channel over the past 75 years and now it's sitting high and
dry firmly on your (Louisiana) side of the river. So you say, "no way, that
thar is Lousiana mud... go build yer henhouse somewhere else. Now git!". So
we go to court, right? But which court? The local courthouse in Mudpie County?
The State Court of Muddy Sandbar Disputes?? Nope. The very first stop in
this case is the US Supreme Court -- the court with jurisdiction over interstate
boundary disputes. We're accustomed to thinking of the US Supreme Court as
the court with authority over weighty issues of constitutional law. It's
interesting that they also are the court that hears disputes over mudbanks in the
Mississippi River. Here's a little snippet from the New York Times (Nov. 1,
1995):
"The Supreme Court settled one of the country's longer-running boundary
disputes today by ruling unanimously that a seven-mile stretch of river frontage
on the Mississippi River's Louisiana bank actually belongs to Mississippi. In
awarding the uninhabited property known as Stack Island, near Lake
Providence, La., to the state across the river, the Court acted within its "original
jurisdiction," its authority under the Constitution to sit as a trial court
and resolve disputes between states. The Court applied principles of boundary
adjudication it has developed over years of hearing such cases."
Hey, I bet you could use a sextant to survey a river... There. We're back on
topic. :-)
-FER
42.0N 87.7W, or 41.4N 72.1W.
www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com
To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
