## Facts

- The State (through the Attorney General) and the St. Landry Parish Police Jury sued a landowner and its lessee to (1) enjoin a cable stretched across Two O’Clock Bayou and (2) obtain a declaration that the bayou is navigable and subject to public use.
- Two O’Clock Bayou runs through swamp areas of St. Landry Parish and historically connected to other water bodies; later dams limited access to certain connected areas.
- The lessee placed a cable across the bayou near an abandoned railroad right-of-way to restrict public access; a separate private dam had been built north of the cable about ten years earlier.
- Evidence addressed the bayou’s physical capacity for water travel, including testimony that shallow areas were about 3½ to 7 feet deep and that passages through stumps/pilings were roughly 8–12 feet wide.
- Historical evidence showed periods when parts of the bed were dry enough for cypress growth, but photographs and testimony indicated an identifiable channel even during low water.
- A lumberman testified that, in the early 1930s, logging operations floated timber out via the bayou behind small motorboats, using rafts (“cribs”) of logs.
- Multiple witnesses testified to longstanding public use for fishing dating back to about 1930, including use of boats with substantial draft and observations of commercial fishing boats.
- The trial court declared the bayou navigable and issued a permanent injunction against maintaining the cable; defendants appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether Two O’Clock Bayou was navigable in fact under Louisiana law so that it is a public thing subject to public use.
2. Whether, if the bayou is navigable, the State and Parish were entitled to a permanent injunction prohibiting a privately maintained cable obstruction and to declaratory relief.

## Decision

- The court of appeal affirmed the trial court’s judgment.
- Two O’Clock Bayou was held navigable in fact under Louisiana standards.
- Because the bayou is navigable, it is a public thing and may not be obstructed by private parties.
- The permanent injunction prohibiting maintenance of the cable across the bayou and the declaration of navigability/public use were upheld.

## Legal Principles

- Navigability in Louisiana is a fact question focused on a water body’s actual or ordinary susceptibility to use for commerce and travel by customary waterborne methods, not solely on historical survey treatment.
- Failure of early surveys to “meander” a water body is not conclusive on navigability where other evidence shows capacity for navigation and actual use.
- Evidence of commercial use (such as floating logs by boat) and long-term public use (including fishing and commercial fishing traffic) supports a finding of navigability.
- Navigable rivers and streams are public things under Louisiana Civil Code art. 453; the public has a right of use, and private obstructions may be enjoined.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed a declaration that Two O’Clock Bayou is navigable and therefore subject to public use, and it upheld a permanent injunction barring a landowner and lessee from maintaining a cable that obstructed the bayou.


State ex rel. Guste v. Two O'Clock Bayou Land Co., Inc., 365 So. 2d 1174 (La. Ct. App. 3d Cir. 1978)