## Facts

- A sand quarry was excavated beginning in 1966 on leased land in Will County, Illinois, later acquired by Leo E. Fatlan.
- During excavation, Fatlan unknowingly crossed the property line and removed materials from neighboring McElvain land; the McElvains did not take action after learning of the encroachment.
- Mining ceased in 1974, and the excavation filled with water, forming a roughly 20-acre water body that extended onto a strip of the McElvain parcel.
- For years, Fatlan and neighboring owners treated the water body as a private recreational area (e.g., boating and fishing).
- In 1998, Robert and Wanda Alderson bought the McElvain property and later obstructed a pathway along the shore where it crossed their land.
- In 2003, Fatlan and others installed a cable barrier along the Alderson property line where it ran through the water, limiting the Aldersons’ access to the broader water surface.
- The Aldersons sought a declaration that owning part of the submerged quarry bed entitled them to reasonable use and enjoyment of the entire water surface.

## Issues

1. Whether ownership of land underlying a portion of a water-filled, man-made quarry automatically confers a right to use the entire surface of the water body.
2. Whether doctrines governing coextensive surface-use rights among bed owners of natural inland lakes extend to an artificial water body created by excavation and subsequent flooding.

## Decision

- The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court’s reversal of summary judgment for the Aldersons.
- The court held the Aldersons did not have an automatic, lake-wide right to use the entire water surface based solely on ownership of a portion of the submerged quarry bed.
- The court concluded that the rule granting coextensive surface-use rights to owners of portions of a natural lake bed did not control this dispute involving a water-filled quarry.
- The Aldersons were not entitled to a declaratory judgment granting them surface rights over the entire quarry lake.

## Legal Principles

- Rules recognizing coextensive surface-use rights among owners of portions of a natural inland lake bed do not automatically apply to a water body formed by excavation and later filled with water.
- Surface-use rights in an artificial or quasi-artificial water body are not determined solely by present bed ownership; historical use, the manner of creation, and reasonable expectations informed by long-standing practice are relevant.
- A purchaser of land underlying part of such a water body cannot, by that purchase alone, convert the established use arrangement into a lake-wide surface-use entitlement absent a controlling doctrine granting that result.

## Conclusion

The court refused to extend natural-lake co-ownership surface-use doctrine to a water-filled quarry and held that owning part of the submerged quarry bed did not, by itself, give the owners a right to use the entire water surface.


Alderson v. Fatlan, 898 N.E.2d 595 (Ill. 2008)