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Originally Posted by Bear Islander
The Supreme Cort of New Hampshire has ruled that "owners have common law property rights" despite RSA 271:20.
Note the word "rights" used by the Court. So property owners do have rights to use the lake that others do not have.
[B]W. A. Sundell & a. vs. Town of New London
SUPREME COURT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
119 N.H. 839, December 12, 1979
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Let's try this one last time....
The original intent of this thread was to question whether a property owner could put out a swim raft and then order boaters to anchor at least 150' away.
The answer still and was no.
The situation became muddled when Fat Jack (who later admitted to same) posted false information and insinuated he would get a swim line and raft to close of his portion of a bay.
That clearly is not the intent of allowing swim lines and common law and State Statute will not allow you to "claim" a portion of a public body of water for your own by doing same.
Now comes a small portion of a 1979 case. The case cited (although you wouldn't know it by the handful of paragraphs excerpted from a number of pages of text) was not in reference to any of the above. Rather it was a case arising out of eminent domain issues due to the accusations that the outflow from a creek receiving treated sewage denied property owners their rightful usage of waters adjacent to their properties.
The basic common law philosophy stated in the few cited paragraphs are not in dispute here. A lakefront owner has the ability to construct docks or piers, a boathouse, float a raft, obtain a mooring permit or build a swim line...opportunites that a non-landowner does not have. That opportunity is not available to a non-property owner, hence a literal reading of the RSA stated would leave one to believe that a non-propery owner could do & build the same as a property owner. We all know that is not the case and the Court was stating the obvious.
There is other case law cited in the above reading that concerns abutters blocking other abutters usage and views with piers, docks, boathouses and the like. In each instance, while there is no one clearly defined definition or delineation of the size and scope of the projects in question, the Court stated that the standard to be used in this State is, is the structure or intended use reasonable?
Remember the word "reasonable", as that is the standard the Court hangs it hat on in cases like these.
A shore front property owner has the expectation of reasonable use of the water in front of his/her property. He/she has the additional ability to build accessory structures on or into the water as long as the usage is reasonable. But that person does not own the water adjacent to his/her property. That person cannot use those accessory structures in an unreasonable manner to deny enjoyment of that same body of water to his abutting neighbors, or the public at large. FJ, nor anyone else, can constuct accessory structures or employ swim lines or rafts to deny abutters or the general public common usage of public property.
Again, the bottom line is the Lake is public property, to be enjoyed by the public. And no member of the public, whether lakeside property owner, swimmer or boater, can utilize unreasonable methods to deny any other person reasonable usage of such property.
Its actually quite as simple as that...dare I say a common law (and common sense) concept?
Finally Fat Jack, I am disappointed that you insinuate that I posted this case law previously while taking the "other side" of the same issue as you so claim. I have done no such thing and quite frankly the first time I ever reviewed this case was today, after seeing a partial portion of it posted here. You have a long history of posting false and/or inflammatory information on this site. However, I won't get angry at you for the false charge you have made against me. Unfortunately I have come to expect such behavior from you as the norm.
Isn't that sad?
