stating that private property rights are “fundamental, natural, inherent, inalienable, not derived from the legislature” (quoting Eggemeyer v. Eggemeyer, 544 S.W.2d 137, 140 (Tex. 1977))
How later courts described this case
- stating that private property rights are “fundamental, natural, inherent, inalienable, not derived from the legislature” (quoting Eggemeyer v. Eggemeyer, 544 S.W.2d 137, 140 (Tex. 1977))
- recognizing that governmental entity has authority to place limitations on property rights through nuisance claims as exercise of police power
- noting that Brookside Village had no comprehensive zoning plan so ordinances in question did not fall under legislative authorization for zoning, but that city “may regulate land use under its general police powers”
- discussing a comparable principle from riparian law and stating that an easement defined by water-line is not extinguished by "gradual and nearly imperceptible movement of coastal boundaries"
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice WILLETT,
concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion and write separately to underscore a point easily overlooked by casual readers: Today’s decision centers on West Galveston Island, not the entire Gulf Coast.
The Fifth Circuit asks broadly whether Texas law mandates an unproven rolling easement on all private Gulf-front beaches. While holding generally that such an easement is not embedded in Texas common law (unlike the State’s right to submerged land), the Court focuses its analysis on Severance’s property, emphasizing the unique historical lineage of title to West Galveston Island. The Court recognizes, if obliquely, that Texas’s 367-mile shoreline is governed by different land patents and conveyances that may impose varying limitations, including encumbrances for public use. In short, the absence of a common- *733 law theory of an easement that leaps onto private land upon which the public has never set foot in no way forecloses the State from proving an easement the old-fashioned way, using traditional means. Upshot: Easements may well burden private Gulf Coast properties, including on West Galveston Island — but they must be proved, not merely presumed.