Opinion ID: 2321422
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Scuba Diving and the Public Trust Rights

Text: [¶ 48] Accepting Bell II's description of the public's rights in the intertidal zone as excluding a general recreational easement, see 557 A.2d at 173, we turn to the narrow issue before us: whether in the context of Maine's common law as addressed above, the public has a right to cross the intertidal portion of the beach on the private owner's property to reach the ocean to scuba dive. Although several amici curiae invite us to assess more broadly whether the public trust rights include a general, or more limited, recreational easement to use the intertidal lands, that issue is neither before us nor necessary to the resolution of this case. See Dickey v. Vermette, 2008 ME 179, ¶ 1, 960 A.2d 1178, 1179 (2008) (declining to reach an issue raised by amicus curiae but not essential to the opinion). [¶ 49] To undertake our analysis, we ask two questions. First, does the intended activity fall readily within the Bell II categories of fishing, fowling, or navigation? If so, there is no need to continue further. If not, it is necessary to determine whether the common law should be understood to include that activityhere specifically the right of passage over the intertidal sand to reach the water to scuba dive. [¶ 50] Beginning with the first question, although our colleagues in concurrence have concluded that some forms of non-boat-related propulsion through the water, including scuba diving, can be found to constitute a form of navigation, we conclude that such an analysis requires stretching the definition of navigation beyond its meaning. Instead, we will determine whether Bird's purpose for crossing the intertidal zone is among the purposes consistent with the common law of the jus publicum, even when such access is for activities that do not strictly fall within the triumvirate of descriptors. Cf. Bell II, 557 A.2d at 173. [¶ 51] Moving then to the second question, we conclude that, although not expressly stated in any one opinion, our common law has regularly accommodated the public's right to cross the intertidal land to reach the ocean for ocean-based activities. The list of uses that have been accepted within the common law, but which do not fall strictly within the definitions of fishing, fowling, and navigation, is significant. See supra ¶¶ 38-40. As we have held, the public may engage in activities that are not directly related to the three descriptors. See, e.g., Marshall, 93 Me. at 536-37, 45 A. at 498; Deering, 25 Me. at 65; cf. Moulton, 37 Me. at 489. [¶ 52] We must also acknowledge, as the concurrence notes, that our language in Bell II appears to set in stone the three talismanic activities to which the walk to the ocean must be tied: fishing, fowling, and navigation. See 557 A.2d at 173. Resigned to those categories in light of principles of stare decisis, the concurrence has found a way to define navigation generously, as including scuba diving. [¶ 53] Rather than stretching the definitions of these three terms beyond their reasonable limits, however, we return to the roots of the common law. Ultimately, the public trust rights in the intertidal zone are not, and have never been, strictly enumerated rights. To the extent that Bell II can be read to forever set the public's rights in stone as related to only fishing, fowling, and navigation, we would expressly disavow that interpretation. We believe the better approach is to extract the principles upon which the Bell II opinion was decided and evaluate those principles in light of the centuries-old jurisprudence governing ownership and use of the intertidal lands. See Shaw v. Jendzejec, 1998 ME 208, ¶ 9, 717 A.2d 367, 371 (discussing principles involved when the Court determines whether a prior decision should be overruled). [¶ 54] We must also respectfully disagree with the concurring opinion's conclusion that courts must strictly adhere to principles of stare decisis when addressing the development of the common law. [T]he common law gives expression to the changing customs and sentiments of the people, State v. Bradbury, 136 Me. 347, 349, 9 A.2d 657 (1939), and its genius is the flexibility and capacity for growth and adaptation, Pendexter, 363 A.2d at 749 (Dufresne, C.J., concurring). While we recognize the unquestioned need for the uniformity and certainty the doctrine [of stare decisis] provides, we have also previously recognized the dangers of a blind application of the doctrine merely to enshrine forever earlier decisions of this court. Adams v. Buffalo Forge Co., 443 A.2d 932, 935 (Me.1982). [¶ 55] As is clear from the history of our cases, long before Bell II was decided, the public's use of the intertidal zone was not so severely limited that only a person with a fishing rod, a gun, or a boat could walk upon that land. Indeed, a careful reading of Bell II demonstrates that limiting the public trust rights narrowly to precisely the three uses specifically referenced in the Colonial Ordinance would conflict with our acknowledgement in Bell II of the need for a sympathetically generous assessment of those very rights. [15] Bell II, 557 A.2d at 173. [¶ 56] In short, our judicial unease with a rigid interpretation of the public trust rights urges clarification of the Bell II holding's scope. See Shaw, 1998 ME 208, ¶¶ 8-9, 717 A.2d at 370-71. Warping and straining the definitions of fishing, fowling, and navigation to include such modern uses as clamming, worming, skating, or scuba diving, creates further confusion as to authorized public usage of intertidal lands. The three terms adequately provide context, but they simply do not and have never, until Bell II, been understood to wholly or exclusively define the public trust rights. [¶ 57] In the end, to the parties before us, it does not matter whether the public's rights to cross the intertidal land to reach the ocean to scuba dive is a matter of general common law, or is liberally classified as a form of navigation. In either event, all six justices conclude that it is an allowable activity. For clarity of the development of the common law, however, we would not shoehorn scuba diving into the definition of navigation. Instead, as have the jurists before us, we would continue to strike a reasonable balance between private ownership of the intertidal lands and the public's use of those lands.