State Supreme Court affirms lower court ruling on Aldrich property

The state Supreme Court on Thursday sided with a lower court chancellor in declaring that John Bret Aldrich, not the state, owns the land south of U.S. 90 and west of Oak Street.

The property once held the Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant and later Lady Luck. The Lady Luck opened in 1993 and closed in 1998.

The issue came before the state high court on appeal by the Secretary of State, who claimed the land was state tidelands property. Aldrich said he owned the land by virtue of a 1784 Spanish Land Grant to his ancestor, Jacques Mathurin.

The city of Biloxi and the Biloxi School District joined Aldrich in the case to protect property tax revenues.

Chancellor Jim Persons ruled in 2022 that the Spanish Land Grant “is valid and therefore the public trust did not attach to said land.”

Persons said the state failed to meet its burden of proof under the Tidelands Act.

The state justices agreed similarly with Persons in the case.

In its conclusion of the opinion, the justices said the Secretary of State failed to follow statutory guidelines in drafting the preliminary and final maps. Further, the state failed to meet its burden of proof that the artificial filling was not the product of the deposition of oyster shells and dredge spoils.

Both the Mathurin grant and the history of the subject property support a finding that it belongs to Aldrich and it would be wrong to deprive him of property his family has owned solely on a misdrawn map.