Silver v. Woodbury

Riparian rights — structures lawfully erected above high-water mark do not become subject to removal by state without legal process when sea has advanced so as to flow under them ■—■ judgment for damages against state officers reversed.

Appeal, by permission, from a judgment of the Appellate Division, of the Supreme Court in the second judicial department, entered December 3, 1918, unanimously affirming a judgment in favor of plaintiffs entered upon a decision of the court on trial at Special Term. The action was to recover damages for a portion of a platform removed and to enjoin the further removal of structures existing between high and low-water mark between Twenty-second and Twenty-third streets, Coney Island, New' York city. The trial court granted the injunction and assessed damages against Egburt E. Woodbury, as attorney-general, and Israel M. Lerner, individually and as deputy attorney-general of the state of New York. The Appellate Division unanimously affirmed on the ground that plaintiff’s structures having been lawfully erected above mean high-water mark did not become subject to removal without legal process when the sea had advanced so as to flow under them and held that the question as to the duty, if any, then to adapt the buildings in the new condition of the sea’s advance, so as to facilitate the public rights to cross, was not before it.