Hugo Black

“ Because the coast is composed of soft, silt-like material, because the water is for the most part relatively shallow, and because the elevation of the land along the shore is extraordinarily low, the shoreline often changes drastically merely as a result of temporary variations in winds and waves. Offshore islands sometimes appear or disappear spontaneously as a result of the same forces, and of course major hurricanes to which Louisiana-unlike California-is occasionally exposed, cause even more substantial changes. ”

“ Stare decisis is a valuable principle because by making the governing legal rules predictable, it enables private parties to determine their rights without litigation and enables lower courts to dispose of the great bulk of disputes that do result in litigation. In the present unique situation, however, only a small handful of parties is affected by the governing legal rule; settlement entirely out of court is highly unlikely under the Court's Convention rule ”

“ Nothing was said in the second California opinion indicating that the treaty provisions the Court borrowed in that case were to be mechanically used to fit every land dispute. The treaty was chosen there because the Court though it provided the 'best and most workable definitions available' in the dispute between California and the United States; the doctrine cannot fit all cases. If it worked for stability in California, it has a directly opposite effect in Louisiana. Moreover, the doctrine is tending to bring about interminable litigation. ”

“ The Louisiana coast is entirely different in many ways. The waters off the shore are shallow and often not readily navigable. The shoreline is marked by numerous complex indentations, and indeed the United States, in a brief filed earlier in this litigation, itself recognized that ' (t) he Louisiana coast line is an extraordinarily complicated one.' [8] (Emphasis added.) Even more important than this complexity of the present coastline is its highly volatile nature. ”

“ Passed 15 years ago, the Act has generated litigation that is not yet abating; we have another dispute similar to this one before us now, and neither the United States nor the State indicates that there is not far more time-consuming litigation § ill to come. In fact, discussion of this case by the Court requires 63 pages in what appears to me to be as succinct and clear an opinion as could have been written. And even yet the end of the dispute has not arrived. How many years the Master who must now be appointed will have to work, how many persons must be hired to help him, no one can predict. ”

“ The mighty Mississippi brings sediment and mud which may build up little islands and mud elevations one day and destroy them the next. Parts of the Mississippi Delta are receding at a rapid rate, while in other parts deposits are rapidly being built up. ”

“ To buttress this contention, references made to a few sporadic statements by Secretaries who had occasion to mark boundaries and by some legi lators helped pass the statute. But surely the Government is not contending that Congress in solemnly considering over a period of years and then passing this law was doing so as a kind of joke. International and local rules of navigation are serious business and the warnings put out under order of Congress to inform ships where inland waters begin must be acted on and obeyed. ”