Riparian rights are a common-law doctrine, which body of law are they part of?

• A. Riparian rights, civil
• B. Riparian rights, statutory
• C. Prior appropriations doctrine, civil
• D. Prior appropriations doctrine, statutory

Answer: (A)

Riparian rights come from decisions made by courts over time, not from statutes. That makes them part of the civil body of law, which covers rules developed through case law and private rights, rather than rules created by legislative acts. The riparian doctrine is a common-law principle about how landowners adjacent to a watercourse may use water, and it isn’t primarily a statute. The other framing, prior appropriation, is a separate doctrine that governs water use in different ways and can be tied to statutory or different considerations in various places, but the question identifies riparian rights with the civil, non-statutory tradition.