Opinion ID: 2321422
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Ownership and Use of the Intertidal Lands in Maine

Text: [¶ 23] In Maine, we have always recognized private ownership of the intertidal land as a part of our common law. At the same time, the public's right to cross the intertidal zone to reach the ocean has also existed since statehood and, in fact, existed long before our state's inception. See Bell I, 510 A.2d at 511-15, and cases cited therein. Accordingly, we return to our historical roots to examine whether the common law of the public trust rights can be understood to include the right to cross the intertidal lands to enter the water to scuba dive.
[¶ 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).
[¶ 33] Just as solidly established, however, is the public's uninterrupted right to make appropriate use of those lands. See Marshall, 93 Me. at 536, 45 A. at 498. As was clarified in 1845, the upland owner has no exclusive right to the portion of the flats on which there is no wharf or pier, and the public have the same rights to the open space, which they had before, provided they do not interfere with his permanent erections. Deering v. Proprietors of Long Wharf, 25 Me. 51, 65 (1845). [¶ 34] Thus, neither the establishment of private ownership rights through the Colonial Ordinance, nor the consequent recognition in common law of private ownership rights, has diminished the public trust rights in the intertidal lands. See Gerrish v. Proprietors of Union Wharf, 26 Me. 384, 392 (1847). The challenge, of course, has been to define the extent of the public activities that are subsumed within the trust. We explored this question extensively in Bell II, in both the majority and the dissent, see 557 A.2d at 173, 185, and we do so again here because declaring the parameters of the common law requires review and evaluation of past uses to provide a context for current uses. See Pendexter, 363 A.2d at 749 (Dufresne, C.J., concurring). [¶ 35] Important to this analysis is our conclusion that nothing in the Colonial Ordinance, or the pronouncements of the common law that followed in the decades after the expiration of the Ordinance, evidenced an intent to change or limit the jus publicum  the public's rights in the intertidal landsexcept to the extent that those rights might interfere with the right of the landowner to wharf out. See Storer, 6 Mass. at 438; see also Marshall, 93 Me. at 536, 45 A. at 498; Gerrish, 26 Me. at 392 (The right to use the waters covering flats between high and low water marks, for the purposes of navigation, was not intended to be abridged by the ordinance of 1641.); Lapish, 8 Me. at 93. [¶ 36] These uses reserved to the public before the adoption of the Colonial Ordinance were described in various ways. As Sir Matthew Hale described them, For the jus privatum of the owner or proprietor is charged with and subject to that jus publicum which belongs to the king's subjects; as the soil of an highway is, which though in point of property it may be a private man's freehold, yet it is charged with a publick interest of the people, which may not be prejudiced or damnified. Sir Matthew Hale, A TREATISE, IN THREE PARTS. PARS PRIMA: De Jure Maris et Brachiorum ejusdem. From a Manuscript of Lord Chief-Justice Hale 13, 35 (Francis Hargrave ed., 1st ed. 1787). [¶ 37] Were it not for the specific and somewhat contradictory language contained in our most recent discussion of the public's rights, see Bell II, 557 A.2d at 173, we would have no difficulty in determining that the judicially accepted expansive definition of the public's rights would readily accommodate the right to walk across the intertidal zone to scuba dive. Indeed, well before Bell II, our courts had consistently acknowledged that the public trust rights in the intertidal land adapted to reflect the realities of use in each era. See id. at 173 & n. 16; Marshall, 93 Me. at 536-37, 45 A. at 498. [¶ 38] Until our decision in Bell II, 557 A.2d at 173, we had never treated the language of the Colonial Ordinance as permanently defining or circumscribing the sum of the public's rights to the intertidal zone. For example, the Colonial Ordinance referred to the right of free fishing as available to Everie Inhabitant who is an hous-holder. See Whittlesey, Law of the Seashore, Tidewaters and Great Ponds in Massachusetts and Maine at xxxvi; see also Duncan v. Sylvester, 24 Me. 482, 486 (1844); Parker v. Cutler Milldam Co., 20 Me. 353, 357-58 (1841). Later, however, we construed the right as one belonging not just to householders but also to the public. See Andrews, 124 Me. at 363-64, 129 A. at 299; Marshall, 93 Me. at 536-37, 45 A. at 498 ([T]he public may enjoy all these rights in common with the owner [of intertidal land].). We similarly declined to give effect to the language of the Colonial Ordinance that restricts free fishing to locations within the precincts of the town where [householders] dwell. See State v. Leavitt, 105 Me. 76, 80-82, 72 A. 875, 877-78 (1909) (upholding legislation that excepted inhabitants of towns from restrictions on clamming, but noting that, where towns did not issue permits or otherwise take action, there is free fishing for every one). [¶ 39] Just as we have not treated the Colonial Ordinance as defining or restricting which member of the public would receive the benefit of the jus publicum, we had not, until Bell II, restricted the activities allowed by the jus publicum to the specific references in the Colonial Ordinance: free fishing and fowling, and unhindered passage of boats or other vessels. The Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts at 35. Rather, we have adopted a broad understanding of fishing, fowling, and navigation, as well. See Parker, 20 Me. at 357-58; French, 18 Me. at 433, 434-35 (1841) (discussing the public trust right of navigation). We held that these activities could be undertaken for pleasure, as well as for business or sustenance, Barrows, 73 Me. at 449-50; see Andrews, 124 Me. at 363-64, 129 A. at 298-99 (holding that the public trust rights also include commercial navigation and allow a person who operates a power boat for hire to land the boat on the intertidal land). We construed the term fishing in the Colonial Ordinance to include digging for worms, State v. Lemar, 147 Me. 405, 409, 87 A.2d 886, 888 (1952), clams, Leavitt, 105 Me. at 78-80, 72 A. at 876-77, and shellfish, Moulton v. Libbey, 37 Me. 472, 489-90 (1854). We interpreted navigation to allow the public to travel over frozen waters, see French, 18 Me. at 434-35, and to moor a vessel, discharge passengers, and take on cargo, see Wilson, 42 Me. at 24-25. [¶ 40] Pursuant to our broad understanding of the public trust rights, we have authorized public uses that are somewhat related to, but not coextensive with, fishing, fowling, and navigation. For example, upon landing a boat on the intertidal land, we held that the operator, no longer navigating on the water, also may pass freely to the lands and houses of others besides the owners of the flats. Deering, 25 Me. at 65; see Andrews, 124 Me. at 363, 129 A. at 299. We even concluded, without a direct connection to fishing, fowling, and navigation, that the public may lawfully cross intertidal lands by riding or skating when that land is covered with ice. [12] See Marshall, 93 Me. at 536-37, 45 A. at 498. Moreover, our interpretation of the public trust rights has recognized that some intertidal activities have come into favor and eventually fallen out of usemany of which are not directly connected to fishing, fowling, and navigationsuch as the use of the intertidal lands for pre-automobile travel and the use of those lands for driving and resting cattle. See Bell II, 557 A.2d at 173 n. 15. [¶ 41] Despite our expanding interpretation of the rights of the public in relation to private ownership of intertidal lands, an interpretation we characterized as sympathetically generous in Bell II, 557 A.2d at 173, we also defined the public's rights in a manner that did not unreasonably interfere with the rights of the riparian owner. See McFadden v. Haynes & DeWitt Ice Co., 86 Me. 319, 325, 29 A. 1068, 1069 (1894) (stating that the public trust rights do not include cutting ice on the intertidal flats); Moore v. Griffin, 22 Me. 350, 356 (1843) (holding that the public trust rights do not include the taking of mussel-bed manure from the intertidal land of another). Similarly, the public trust rights have excluded the use of the intertidal land for hygienic, bathing-related purposes. See Butler v. Attorney General, 195 Mass. 79, 80 N.E. 688, 689 (1907). Thus, until the decision in Bell II, 557 A.2d 168, the common law developed along lines that were generous to the public, but continued to balance that expansive approach against the upland owners' rights.
[¶ 42] Such was the development of Maine common law related to the intertidal zone until our holdings in Bell I, 510 A.2d 509, and Bell II, 557 A.2d 168, in 1986 and 1989. In Bell I, owners of shorefront property in the Moody Beach area filed suit against the Town of Wells, the State, and several unnamed individuals on the ground that unnamed individuals have used the intertidal zone for activities other than fishing, fowling, and navigation, with the encouragement of the Town. 510 A.2d at 510. The owners sought a declaratory judgment that the public rights on the beach were limited to these three activities. Id. [¶ 43] In the first appeal, we concluded that the Colonial Ordinance was incorporated into Maine's common law pursuant to article ten, section three of the Maine Constitution and section six of the Act of Separation between Maine and Massachusetts, and that our later holdings clearly recognized the validity of the Colonial Ordinance as a part of our common law. Id. at 513-14. Although we noted that the Colonial Ordinance recognized private ownership of the intertidal lands, we again clarified that the private title remained subject to the public right of use declared by the Colonial Ordinance. Id. at 516. [¶ 44] On April 25, 1986, while the Bell I appeal opinion was pending, the Maine Legislature enacted The Public Trust in Intertidal Land Act, P.L. 1985, ch. 782 (codified at 12 M.R.S. §§ 571-573 (2010)). See Bell II, 557 A.2d at 190 (Wathen, J. dissenting). The Act provided that the intertidal lands were impressed with a public trust, that the public trust included use of the intertidal land for fishing, fowling, navigation, recreation, and [a]ny other trust rights to use intertidal land recognized by the Maine common law and not specifically abrogated by statute. 12 M.R.S. § 573(1); see Bell II, 557 A.2d at 190 (Wathen, J., dissenting). [¶ 45] Upon remand in Bell I, the Superior Court held a four-week bench trial. Bell II, 557 A.2d at 169. The court entered a judgment in favor of the property owners that declared The Public Trust in Intertidal Land Act, see 12 M.R.S. §§ 571-573, unconstitutional because it expanded the public's trust rights beyond that established by the common law. Bell II, 557 A.2d at 169. The court also concluded that the public had not acquired a common law easement for general recreational use and found insufficient evidence to establish a public easement by local custom to use the beach for recreational purposes. Bell II, 557 A.2d at 173-79. [¶ 46] Notwithstanding earlier approved common law activities that were not defined within the three enumerated uses, in Bell II we held that the public trust rights to the intertidal lands did not include a general recreational easement. Id. at 176. We stated that the public trust rights had never been divorced from fishing, fowling, and navigation, but also that these uses had been given a sympathetically generous and broad construction in Maine's common law. Id. at 173. [¶ 47] Writing for the three-member dissent, then-Justice Wathen concluded that a reasonable interpretation of the public rights in intertidal zones extends beyond fishing, fowling, and navigation and includes other recreational uses [that] have developed and received public acceptance. [13] See Bell II, 557 A.2d at 188-89 (Wathen, J., dissenting). [14]
[¶ 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.