Pratt v. State Department Of Natural Resources

309 N.W.2d 767 (1981)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

For some 20 years P has owned three sloughs. They are very shallow and only 5 feet at the deepest of the three. P owns almost all the land around each of them. All three lakes are unmeandered natural water basins. They 'freeze out' each winter. Only one has an outlet. The lakes are not suitable for boating, swimming, or fishing, but there are ducks for hunting, muskrat, and beaver, and the sloughs are good for raising wild rice. P harvested all three lakes since the 1950s. D advised P he could no longer harvest the wild rice on his property by mechanical picker but had to do it by hand flailing. P submitted a claim for damages to the Legislative Claims Commission. The commission directed P to seek a declaratory judgment action on whether the wild rice was being grown in public waters and deferred further action on the claim. P brought a declaratory action. The trial court, after hearing the evidence, found the waters to be public. It also found the waters had been private prior to 1973; that the 1973 amendments to Minn. Stat. §§ 105.37 and 105.38 'caused previously private waters to be reclassified as public waters, thus subjecting the rice-growing thereon to regulation by the state and vesting ownership of the rice in the state'; and that, consequently, there was a compensable taking under eminent domain law 'since P may no longer use a mechanical picker on the above-mentioned waters.' D appealed.