Good fences may make good neighbors,1 but one person’s dock can often lead to litigation with a neighbor, or with a local government. In fact, disputes over the right of a property owner to build a dock to access adjoining waterto exercise his or her “riparian rights”2seem to be arising with more and more frequency, and in a wide variety of situations. Early last month, for example, the New York Court of Appeals, in Estate of Becker v. Murtagh,3 resolved an adverse possession dispute between neighboring property owners over the ownership of land upon which a dock had been constructed in 1963 on Oak Beach in the Long Island Town of Babylon.
There are two principal categories of court cases involving docks: cases arising from the decision of a municipal body to grant or deny permission to an applicant to build a dock, and cases arising when one property owner objects to another’s existing or proposed dock. The recent decision by the Supreme Court, Suffolk County, in Matter of MCBBLA Family Trust v. Incorporated Village of Poquott Planning Bd.4 falls into the first group.
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