## Facts

- Robert Arnold owned riparian land at Perth Amboy on the tidal Raritan River and claimed title extending into the riverbed based on colonial-era surveys and proprietary-era materials referencing grants of fisheries in navigable rivers.
- Arnold (and predecessors) staked off an oyster bed in front of the upland, planted oysters at significant expense, and asserted an exclusive right to harvest them, including attempts to exclude others.
- The oyster bed was exposed only at very low tides but lay below the ordinary low-water mark.
- Benajah Mundy led several skiffs onto the tidal waters in front of Arnold’s land and took oysters from the bed, asserting a common right of citizens to fish in a public navigable river.
- Arnold sued in trespass for entry onto his alleged close and taking “his oysters,” and the legal question was reserved for resolution by the state supreme court.

## Issues

1. Whether the bed and waters of a navigable tidal river are privately ownable or are held by the state for common public use.
2. Whether a riparian owner can obtain an exclusive property right in oysters planted on a tidal riverbed below the ordinary low-water mark sufficient to maintain trespass.
3. Whether a grant bounded by a navigable tidal river extends beyond the shoreline (ad filum aquae) or stops at the water’s edge.

## Decision

- The court held that navigable waters where the tide ebbs and flows, and the lands beneath them, are common to the people for navigation and public fishery and are held by the state as sovereign.
- Royal prerogative rights in such waters were incidents of sovereignty, not private proprietary soil, and upon independence vested in the people of New Jersey.
- The colonial proprietors therefore lacked authority to convey exclusive (several) fisheries in navigable tidal rivers that would displace public rights.
- A person who plants oysters on the bed of a navigable tidal river below low-water mark does not acquire a property interest that supports a trespass action against others who take them under a claim of common right.
- A grant bounded on a non-tidal fresh-water stream presumptively extends to the thread of the stream, but a grant bounded on a navigable tidal river extends only to the water’s edge.
- Disposition: Arnold could not recover in trespass.

## Legal Principles

- The state holds tidal navigable waters and submerged lands in a sovereign trust for public uses, including navigation and fishing.
- Public rights in navigable tidal waters cannot be lost by private occupation, exclusion, or long acquiescence inconsistent with those public rights.
- Private expenditures or improvements (such as planting and staking oyster beds) on public trust submerged lands do not, without lawful sovereign authorization, create an exclusive right enforceable by trespass.
- Riparian boundary rule: ad filum aquae applies to non-tidal fresh-water streams; tidal navigable rivers are bounded at the shoreline, leaving the bed to the state for public use.

## Conclusion

The court rejected a private trespass claim to oysters planted below low-water mark in a tidal navigable river, holding that the waters and submerged lands are held by the state for the public’s common rights of navigation and fishery and are not subject to private exclusivity created by unilateral staking or planting.


Arnold v. Mundy, 6 N.J.L. 1 (N.J. 1821)