## Facts

- Lake Zurich is a private, nonnavigable lake in Lake County, Illinois.
- Diana Beacham owned roughly 15%–20% of the lakebed and, through Sandy Point Beach, Inc., operated a commercial boat-rental and recreation business on the lake.
- The Lake Zurich Property Owners Association consisted of many lakebed owners who executed license agreements allowing the Association to use and regulate their lakebed interests; the Association controlled most of the lakebed through these licenses.
- The Association implemented a quota/permit system for boats and sought to enforce it by warnings and by pursuing criminal trespass charges against alleged violators.
- Beacham and her licensees received warnings; Beacham was prosecuted for criminal trespass, but the prosecution failed.
- Beacham and Sandy Point Beach, Inc. sought declaratory relief that, as lakebed owners, they and their licensees could reasonably use the entire lake surface, including waters overlying lakebed areas owned or licensed to Association members.

## Issues

1. Whether an owner of part of the bed of a private, nonnavigable lake has exclusive rights to the surface waters above the owner’s tract and may exclude others as trespassers.
2. Whether instead each lakebed owner (and the owner’s licensees) has a coextensive right to the reasonable use of the entire lake surface, limited by other owners’ equal rights and an undue-interference standard.
3. Whether a lakebed owners’ association holding licenses from some owners may assert exclusive possession of the surface waters over licensed tracts to bar other lakebed owners and their licensees.

## Decision

- The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court’s reversal of the circuit court’s dismissal and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held that ownership of part of the bed of a private, nonnavigable lake gives the owner and the owner’s licensees the right to reasonable use and enjoyment of the entire surface of the lake.
- The court rejected the Association’s claim that it could exclude Beacham and her licensees from surface waters overlying tracts controlled by the Association’s licenses.
- The court indicated that disputes over use are governed by reasonableness and “undue interference,” not by a rule of exclusive surface ownership tied to submerged property boundaries.

## Legal Principles

- In a private, nonnavigable lake with multiple lakebed owners, each owner has a correlative right to the reasonable use and enjoyment of the entire lake surface.
- Each owner’s (and licensees’) surface uses are limited by the equal rights of other owners and their licensees; the controlling constraint is whether a use unduly interferes with others’ reasonable uses.
- A rule confining each owner to the “column” of surface waters above the owner’s tract is disfavored due to practical enforcement problems and the physical reality of a single body of water.
- An association holding licenses from some lakebed owners cannot convert those licenses into exclusive possession of the surface waters that defeats the coextensive rights of other lakebed owners.
- Prior Illinois authority concerning the same lake did not establish a general rule of exclusive surface control; the governing rule is the reasonable-use/undue-interference standard.

## Conclusion

The Illinois Supreme Court held that owners of portions of the bed of a private, nonnavigable lake—and their licensees—may reasonably use the entire lake surface, so long as their use does not unduly interfere with the reasonable uses of other owners and their licensees; the case was remanded to apply that standard to the Association’s asserted regulatory and exclusionary measures.


Beacham v. Lake Zurich Prop. Owners Ass’n, 123 Ill. 2d 227, 526 N.E.2d 154 (Ill. 1988)