Opinion ID: 2321422
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Enactment of the Colonial Ordinance and Its Incorporation in Maine's Common Law

Text: [¶ 24] In Maine, as in Massachusetts, the determination of public and private ownership of the intertidal lands, an area of law derived from the prevailing interpretation of English common law, is now a matter of state common law. Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 1, 11, 14, 14 S.Ct. 548, 38 L.Ed. 331 (1894); see Bell II, 557 A.2d at 181 & n. 2 (Wathen, J., dissenting); Bell I, 510 A.2d at 511-12. Originally, the crown held title to the intertidal region, which was believed to be incapable of ordinary and private occupation, cultivation and improvement and more appropriately devoted to the public uses of navigation, commerce, and fishing. Shively, 152 U.S. at 11-13, 14 S.Ct. 548. The crown's ownership of the intertidal lands consisted of two types: the title, or jus privatum, which the crown held absolutely as the sovereign, and the public rights, or jus publicum, which the crown held as the representative of the nation and for the public benefit. Id. at 11, 14 S.Ct. 548. The crown could convey intertidal lands to private individuals, but all such conveyances were subject to the jus publicum. Id. at 13, 14 S.Ct. 548. [¶ 25] After the American Revolution, the people of each state became themselves sovereign; and in that character [held] the absolute right to all their navigable waters and the soils under them for their own common use, subject only to the rights since surrendered by the Constitution to the general government. Martin v. Lessee of Waddell, 41 U.S. 367, 410, 16 Pet. 367, 10 L.Ed. 997 (1842). In 1988, the United States Supreme Court confirmed that the original thirteen states and all new states acquired title to lands under waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide and, like the crown in traditional English common law, held the title in trust for the people. Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Mississippi, 484 U.S. 469, 473-74, 108 S.Ct. 791, 98 L.Ed.2d 877 (1988); see Bell II, 557 A.2d at 181 (Wathen, J., dissenting). Accordingly, each coastal state owned its intertidal lands unless and until it modified this traditional common law. [¶ 26] In Maine, the common law has been modified to create private ownership of intertidal lands subject to the public trust rights reserved to the State. See Lapish v. Bangor Bank, 8 Me. 85, 93 (1831). The historical development of the fee simple private ownership of intertidal lands has been much discussed in our jurisprudence. See Bell I, 510 A.2d at 511-15. Key to private ownership of intertidal lands in Maine and Massachusetts was the enactment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony's Colonial Ordinance of 1641-47. [10] See Bell I, 510 A.2d at 512-15. Specifically, the upland owner's property right in the intertidal zone was articulated in the Colonial Ordinance of 1647. See The Book of the General Lauus and Libertyes Concerning the Inhabitants of the Massachusetts (1648), reprinted in The Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts 35 (1929) ([T]he Proprietor of the land adjoyning shall have proprietie to the low water mark where the Sea doth not ebb above a hundred rods, and not more wheresoever it ebs farther.); Barrows v. McDermott, 73 Me. 441, 447-48 (1882); see also Bell II, 557 A.2d at 171; Bell I, 510 A.2d at 512-13. [¶ 27] The Colonial Ordinance allowed private ownership of intertidal lands to promote commerce by encouraging the construction of wharves at private expense. See Storer, 6 Mass. at 438. In Storer, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court summarized the Colonial Ordinance's historical origins as follows: When our ancestors emigrated to this country, their first settlements were on harbors or arms of the sea; and commerce was among the earliest objects of their attention. For the purposes of commerce, wharves erected below high water mark were necessary. But the colony was not able to build them at the public expense. To induce persons to erect them, the common law of England was altered by an ordinance, providing that the proprietor of land adjoining on the sea or salt water, shall hold to low water mark, where the tide does not ebb more than one hundred rods, but not more where the tide ebbs to a greater distance. Id. [¶ 28] In acknowledging the existing and unmodified rights of the public, however, the Colonial Ordinance expressly referred to those rights as connected to fishing, fowling, and the passage of boats and vessels, which later was summarized as a right of navigation. John J. Whittlesey, Law of the Seashore, Tidewaters and Great Ponds in Massachusetts and Maine xxxvi-xxxvii (1932); see Bell II, 557 A.2d at 173. [¶ 29] Although the Colonial Ordinance expired by its own terms, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court incorporated the concept of private intertidal ownership set forth in the Colonial Ordinance into its common law in 1810: This ordinance was annulled with the charter by the authority of which it was made; but, from that time to the present, a usage has prevailed, which now has force as our common law, that the owner of lands bounded on the sea or salt water shall hold to low water mark, so that he does not hold more than one hundred rods below high water mark.... Storer, 6 Mass. at 438. [¶ 30] Thus, although the private ownership of the intertidal lands announced in the Colonial Ordinance had become a part of Massachusetts common law, the Ordinance itself was not in effect as a matter of positive statutory law at the time that Maine separated from Massachusetts in 1820. See id. Additionally, the Ordinance did not apply to the territory that is now Maine, nor did the legislative body responsible for its enactment have governing authority over that territory. Bell II, 557 A.2d at 183 (Wathen, J., dissenting); see Conant v. Jordan, 107 Me. 227, 230, 77 A. 938, 939 (Me.1910) (At the time this ordinance was adopted, none of the territory now embraced within the State of Maine was a part of, or in any way connected with, the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Therefore the ordinance as a legislative or declaratory act did not then apply to this territory.). [¶ 31] When Maine achieved statehood in 1820, the Act of Separation and the Maine Constitution incorporated Massachusetts common law into Maine law. Me. Const. art. X, §§ 3, 5; [11] Mass. Laws 1819, ch. 161, § 6; see Bell I, 510 A.2d at 513-14. Eleven years later, we confirmed that the prevailing usage of private intertidal land ownership expressed in the Massachusetts court's decision in Storer was part of Maine's common law. Lapish, 8 Me. at 93 (Ever since [the Storer ] decision, as well as long before, the law on this point has been considered as perfectly at rest; and we do not feel ourselves at liberty to discuss it as an open question.). In 1882, we similarly acknowledged that, although the Colonial Ordinance did not extend to Maine by its terms, we regarded the Colonial Ordinance's recognition of private rights as part of the common law of Maine by public and judicial acceptance. Barrows, 73 Me. at 447-48; see Bell I, 510 A.2d at 513-14; Conant, 107 Me. at 230, 77 A. at 939. [¶ 32] Accordingly, the upland owners' fee ownership of the intertidal zone is solidly established in Maine's common law. See Britton II, 2011 ME 16, ¶ 7, 12 A.3d at 42 (The ownership of the intertidal zone is as land and not a mere easement (quotation marks omitted)); Sawyer v. Beal, 97 Me. 356, 358, 54 A. 848, 848 (1903) (Within the limits of his ownership he has all the exclusive rights of an owner.); State v. Wilson, 42 Me. 9, 26, 28 (1856); see also Commonwealth v. Charlestown, 18 Mass. 180, 183-84 (1822) (describing the expansive fee simple ownership rights of the riparian owner in Massachusetts).