# Severance v. Patterson

> Texas Supreme Court · March 30, 2012 · 55 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 501

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/5110068

## Case

- **Full name:** Carol SEVERANCE v. Jerry PATTERSON, Commissioner of the Texas General Land Office Greg Abbott, Attorney General for the State of Texas and Kurt Sistrunk, District Attorney for the County of Galveston, Texas
- **Court:** Texas Supreme Court
- **Decided:** March 30, 2012
- **Citations:** 55 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 501; 370 S.W.3d 705; 2012 Tex. LEXIS 260; 2012 WL 1059341
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Willett
- **Judges:** Green, Guzman, Hecht, Jefferson, Johnson, Lehrmann, Medina, Wainwright, Willett
- **Cited by:** 75 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/5110068

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- 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"
- observing that location of implied easement is typically static but location of public beach easements is necessarily dynamic because boundaries of water change over time

## Opinion text

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.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/5110068. Public record. Not legal advice.