This dispute offered the Maryland appellate court an opportunity to provide guidance on a previously unsettled matter of riparian rights. Does a deed conveying an easement for ingress and egress to the Calvert County shore of a navigable river, in this case the Patuxent River, convey riparian rights?

“A riparian owner is one who owns the land bordering upon, bounded by, fronting on, abutting, or adjacent and contiguous to and in contact with a body of water, such as a river…”

Those who have riparian rights may make such structures as wharves, piers, and landings that are connected to the waterfront land and built out from the water.

This dispute is essentially whether or not the easement for ingress and egress to the waterfront carries with it the right to construct a pier?

In Paul A. Gwynn, et al. v. Dorothy V. Oursler, et al., the court found the easement does not carry with it an implied riparian right to water access.

The court looked to the deed of easement and its express language “for ingress and egress only.”

While noting that there had been a dock at the end of the easement area in 1957, when the easement was conveyed, the court was more impressed that the feuding family members both had river access from points other than this shared easement created a generation ago by the families.