[ChuckMcM]

Not exactly, the court ruled that the land grant rights that Alviso got from the Mexican Government before California existed as a state, "extinguished" the right of California to change the rules. It will be interesting to watch on appeal.

The reason you would rule that way is because California can't simply go in and change your property rights, at least not without compensating you and using eminent domain. That has been established for a long time. So for the same reason they cannot just decide to give access to the minerals under your house to Chevron.

So it isn't "squatters rights" at all, rather it is property holder rights. If this is upheld it could have some interesting repercussions on water rights in the Central Valley if I remember, some of those were parts of Mexican land grants as well.

[sedev]

> If this is upheld it could have some interesting repercussions on water rights in the Central Valley > if I remember, some of those were parts of Mexican land grants as well.

That's both news to me and a wincing moment of "wow, California politics really do come down to water issues 90% of the time".

[jfb]

I remember telling a friend's kid, in ~2000, that if she really wanted a totally secure future, that she should quit computer programming and become a riparian lawyer. I maintain that this is still the best advice I've ever given.

[alabut]

It absolutely is. I took a California Government class in college that blew my mind about how much of bipartisan political scheming is about water, to this day, because there's so much money in it.

His oft repeated quote was "when politicians agree on something and it stays out of the news, it's usually not in the public interest".

People like to make fun of Las Vegas as a city that wouldn't exist without imported water but most of So Cal wouldn't either. The bad guy in the film Chinatown is loosely based on William Mulholland, the chief engineer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars

[ggchappell]

I don't see why the reasoning didn't go like the following.

California law requires the property owner to give up rights. The eminent-domain laws require the state to compensate property owners when forcing them to give up rights.

Conclusion: The property owner must allow beach access to the public, and the state must pay the property owner for allowing this.

EDIT: The comment by gojomo would seem to explain this.

[ChuckMcM]

Yup, the question is whether or not the treaty trumps California law otherwise it would have worked exactly that way.

I like the idea of working out a 'patch' to the treaty, although I don't think I've heard of that ever happening in practice, new treaties yes, but patching an old one not so much.

[ballard]

Adverse possession may be used to force an easement on the grounds that the access road was itself de-facto public. If not an easement maybe forced in any case.