## Facts

- Herbert and Joan Anderson bought land in 1965 that was traversed by a small non-navigable creek; no other party claimed an interest in the creek in its natural state.
- Anderson excavated low areas and built an earthen dam (begun 1966–1967; completed 1975), creating a substantial man-made lake.
- The impoundment partially flooded neighboring parcels, including land owned by Jessie Lewis and Madeline Watson.
- Lewis and Watson sued for flooding; the dispute settled when they conveyed Anderson a flowage easement for $10,000.
- The flowage easement granted Anderson the right to flood the land, reserved title and beneficial use (except flowage rights) to the grantors, and reserved Anderson’s right to discontinue the flowage.
- Lewis and Watson later sold their tract to Sam Bell; portions of Bell’s land lay beneath the lake surface.
- Anderson sought an injunction to stop Bell and Bell’s guests from boating and fishing on the lake surface above Anderson’s submerged lands, while conceding Bell could use the lake surface above Bell’s own submerged land.
- A stipulated aerial photograph showed Bell owned over one acre of bottom land under the lake, a small portion of the total lake area.

## Issues

1. Whether ownership of land adjacent to or beneath a man-made, non-navigable lake gives an owner, by that fact alone, a right to use the entire lake surface for activities such as fishing and boating.
2. Whether the lake’s creator and owner of submerged lands may exclude an adjoining/underlying owner from using surface waters above the creator’s bottom lands absent a conveyance or agreement granting broader surface-use rights.

## Decision

- The Florida Supreme Court quashed the rule adopted below and rejected treating man-made lakes the same as natural lakes for surface-use rights.
- The Court held that an owner adjacent to or beneath a man-made, non-navigable water body is not entitled, solely by virtue of that ownership, to beneficial use of the entire surface.
- The Court adopted the common-law rule favoring the developer/creator of the artificial lake: absent a contrary grant, the creator may exclude others from using surface waters above the creator’s own submerged lands.
- Applying that rule, Bell could be excluded from boating and fishing over the portions of the lake where Anderson owned the bottom lands.

## Legal Principles

- For man-made, non-navigable lakes, ownership of contiguous or subjacent land does not automatically confer a right to use the entire lake surface.
- Natural-lake surface-use doctrines do not automatically extend to artificial lakes; rights depend on title, easements, and agreements.
- Common-law principles generally protect the lake developer’s superior privileges based on creation, investment, and reasonable expectations, unless those rights have been conveyed away.
- A flowage easement granting the right to flood, without more, does not by itself grant successors broad rights to use surface waters over submerged lands owned by another.

## Conclusion

Florida law treats man-made, non-navigable lakes differently from natural lakes: a neighboring or underlying owner’s adjacency or submerged ownership alone does not create a right to use the whole surface, and the lake’s creator may exclude others from surface use over the creator’s bottom lands absent an affirmative grant.


Anderson v. Bell, 433 So. 2d 1202 (Fla. 1983)