## Facts

- The dispute concerned several water-covered areas connected to the Arkansas River: Echubby Chute, Echubby Lake, an adjoining ditch, and nearby wooded areas in Desha and Lincoln Counties, Arkansas.
- In 1968, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers navigation project on the Arkansas River caused permanent inundation of land that had previously been upland, including the Echubby areas.
- Echubby Lake Hunting Club acquired title to the property in 2001 and thereafter excluded nonmembers from access to the waters and flooded areas.
- Arkansas River Rights Committee (ARRC), a nonprofit association of hunters and fishermen, asserted that the public had used the Echubby areas for years for boating and fishing and that the areas were covered with water year-round.
- ARRC sought declaratory relief that the public had access rights based on (a) navigability/public status of the waters and (b) a public prescriptive right arising from long-term open use.
- The hunting club moved for summary judgment, asserting the waters were nonnavigable private waters and that no public rights existed.
- The circuit court granted summary judgment to the hunting club; it also granted ARRC additional time to respond to the summary-judgment motion.

## Issues

1. Whether summary judgment was improper because genuine issues of material fact existed as to public access based on navigability and/or the legal effect of long-term artificial inundation of land connected to a navigable waterway.
2. Whether summary judgment was improper because genuine issues of material fact existed as to whether the public acquired a prescriptive right to use the Echubby areas for recreational purposes.
3. Whether the circuit court erred by granting ARRC an extension of time to respond to the summary-judgment motion.

## Decision

- The Arkansas Court of Appeals reversed the grant of summary judgment to the hunting club and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held that evidence of year-round flooding, connection to the Arkansas River, and recreational boating and fishing created factual disputes that could not be resolved on summary judgment.
- The court held that factual disputes also remained on the claim that the public acquired a prescriptive right through long-term open use.
- On cross-appeal, the court affirmed the order granting ARRC additional time to respond to the summary-judgment motion.

## Legal Principles

- Summary judgment is proper only when no genuine issue of material fact remains and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law; evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmovant.
- When navigable waters are artificially extended so that, without the owner’s consent, private land is permanently flooded long enough to create a distinctive new high-water mark, the State may acquire rights (including title) in the flooded area by prescription or limitation, foreclosing private ownership.
- Determinations concerning navigability, the permanence and legal effect of inundation, and whether use ripened into a prescriptive right are fact-intensive and generally not suitable for resolution on an undeveloped summary-judgment record.

## Conclusion

The court required a trial-level determination of whether the Echubby areas are subject to public access because evidence raised material factual disputes about navigability, the effect of permanent artificial flooding connected to a navigable river, and whether long-term public recreational use created a prescriptive right, while upholding the trial court’s procedural decision to extend ARRC’s response time.


Arkansas River Rights Comm. v. Echubby Lake Hunting Club, 126 S.W.3d 738 (Ark. Ct. App. 2003)