In a 5-2 ruling in Glass v. Goeckel, the Michigan Supreme Court
held that Michiganders have a right to walk along privately
owned beaches so long as they do not cross the “high-water
mark.” While this will clearly be a popular decision, it is
unsound — and it is even more flawed than the dissenting
justices recognized. The case involved a dispute between
neighbors about the right to walk along a private beachfront.
The owners of the property maintained that they could exclude
the plaintiff from traversing it above the waterline, while the
plaintiff maintained she had the right to walk the property
below the high-water mark. The Supreme Court’s majority opinion
in the case held that “public-trust” uses of the property were
permissible below the “high-water” mark, which the court defined
as “the point on the bank or shore up to which the presence and
action of the water is so continuous as to leave a distinct mark
either by erosion, destruction of terrestrial vegetation, or
other easily recognized characteristi