The "your Vote Counts" Thread

[FishinCricket]

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16972749023983545035&q=elder+v.+delcour&hl=en&as_sdt=2,26

Cutting to the meat of the matter:

The trial court determined the issues presented by the pleadings and declared the law respecting plaintiff's rights as follows: "That the Meramec River at the place in question and as described in the petition is public water and subject to travel by plaintiff and those who desire to wade it or to float down it in boats * * * that plaintiff has a legal right to fish in said stream subject to the regulations of the Missouri Conservation Commission and the Laws of Missouri * * *." The court declared that plaintiff had "the legal right to carry his boat around obstacles in the river where obstructions preclude the passage of his boat, subject to liability for damage he might inflict on defendant's property * * * (and) the legal right to tie up his boat or to camp on said stream as long as he uses the stream bed, gravel bars and clearly recognizable area over which the stream flows during its normal stages." The trial court further ordered "that defendant desist in his efforts to hinder or close such free passage up and down the said stream."

[Al Agnew]

And just to conclude Cricket's "meat of the matter", that was the decision of the trial court, which was appealed and struck down by an appeals court, then went to the state Supreme Court, where the last sentence of the Elder v Delcour ruling stated simply, "The judgment of the trial court is affirmed."

For those of you unfamiliar with the Meramec, the stretch of river on which Elder v Delcour was based is pretty far upstream. One of the contentions of the landowner's attorney was that at one point, the state legislature had declared the Meramec to be a public highway up to the mouth of Crooked Creek, a statute that was later repealed, and since the stream in question was above that point, it was never considered a public highway.

The mouth of Crooked Creek is a couple day's float ABOVE Maramec Spring. The river above Maramec Spring is not easily floatable year-round. Above Crooked Creek it's a little smaller yet, though the stretch from the MDC Short Bend access at Highway 19 down to Crooked Creek is covered in the MDC float book. So it's a smaller stream than Shoal Creek, on a par with, for instance, Bull Creek, Swan Creek, and upper Flat Creek in SW MO, or Jacks Fork from the Prongs down to Highway 17, or Castor River around Marquand, etc. It's a float that will entail lots of scraping bottom and dragging the canoe over at least some riffles in normal summertime water levels. So since the Supreme Court ruled it a "public highway", that should even cover a lot of the marginally floatable streams.

[FishinCricket]

Good summary of the legalese, Al..

[drew03cmc]

Al, thank you!