## Facts

- In 1924, Block 207 in Broward County, Florida was platted as oceanfront property bounded on the east by the Atlantic Ocean and on the west by a strip owned by the City of Dania.
- The defendants owned platted lots in Block 207; the City owned the adjacent strip to the west.
- Over time, the ocean moved landward and Block 207 gradually disappeared, leaving the defendants’ lots physically gone.
- The City brought a quiet title action seeking a decree that its western strip had become oceanfront and that it held riparian rights to the Atlantic.
- The defendants argued the City failed to prove the land was lost by gradual erosion rather than avulsion, and also challenged the accuracy of the original plat’s depiction of Block 207.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court properly found that Block 207 was lost by gradual erosion (not avulsion) and the resulting effect on title and boundaries.
2. Whether the evidence and governing presumptions supported quieting title in the City and its assignee and vesting them with riparian rights.

## Decision

- The District Court of Appeal of Florida affirmed the final decree.
- The court upheld the finding that Block 207 gradually disappeared by erosion rather than avulsion.
- The court concluded the defendants failed to rebut the presumption favoring erosion over avulsion.
- The court affirmed that the City’s property became the new upland tract bounded by the Atlantic Ocean and that the City and its assignee held the riparian rights incident to oceanfront ownership.
- The court rejected the defendants’ challenge to the accuracy of the 1924 plat as unsupported by the record.

## Legal Principles

- Erosion or submergence is the reverse of accretion; when water imperceptibly encroaches on riparian land, the boundary moves with the waterline.
- If coastal land is lost gradually by erosion, the private owner bears the loss; the submerged land ceases to be privately owned and becomes sovereign land.
- If land is lost by avulsion (a sudden, perceptible event), boundaries do not shift based on the event.
- There is a presumption that shoreline change occurs by gradual erosion or accretion rather than avulsion; the party asserting avulsion bears the burden to prove sudden loss.
- When the former oceanfront tract disappears by erosion, the next inland parcel becomes the shoreline parcel and obtains riparian rights as the new upland owner.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed a decree quieting title in the City and its assignee after the defendants’ oceanfront lots were lost to gradual erosion, applying a presumption against avulsion and holding that riparian rights attach to the parcel that becomes the new upland boundary with the Atlantic Ocean.


Schulz v. City of Dania, 156 So. 2d 520 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1963)