Opinion ID: 2461173
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The development of the public trust doctrine in the United States

Text: Courts in this country have readily embraced the public trust doctrine. In 1821, in the first notable American case to express public trust principles, the Supreme Court of New Jersey observed that citizens have a common right to sovereign-controlled waterways: The sovereign power itself ... cannot, consistently with the principles of the law of nature and the constitution of a well ordered society, make a direct and absolute grant of the waters of the state, divesting all the citizens of their common right. It would be a grievance which never could be long borne by a free people. Arnold v. Mundy, 6 N.J.L. 1, 78 (N.J.1821). Thereafter, the United States Supreme Court similarly recognized that when the Revolution took place, the people of each state became themselves sovereign; and in that character hold the absolute right to all their navigable waters and the soils under them for their own common use. Martin et al. v. Waddell, 41 U.S. 367, 410, 16 Pet. 367, 10 L.Ed. 997 (1842). Fifty years later, in what has become the seminal public trust doctrine case, the Supreme Court decided Illinois Central Railroad v. Illinois, 146 U.S. 387, 13 S.Ct. 110, 36 L.Ed. 1018 (1892). In Illinois Central the Court noted that because the State of Illinois was admitted to the United States on equal footing with the original 13 colonies, it, like the colonies, was granted title to the navigable waters and the lands underneath them. Id. at 434, 13 S.Ct. 110. For Illinois, that meant that upon its admission, it held title to its portion of the waters of and lands beneath Lake Michigan. Id. at 434, 452, 13 S.Ct. 110. However, the waters and lands underneath Lake Michigan were not freely alienable by the State of Illinoisits title to those areas was different in character from that which the State holds in lands intended for sale. Id. at 452, 13 S.Ct. 110. More specifically, it possessed only title held in trust for the people of the State that they may enjoy the navigation of the waters, carry on commerce over them, and have liberty of fishing therein freed from the obstruction or interference of private parties. Id. As a result, the Court concluded that the Illinois Legislature's attempted relinquishment of such trust property to the Illinois Central Railroad is not consistent with the exercise of that trust which requires the government of the State to preserve such waters for the use of the public.... The State can no more abdicate its trust over property in which the whole people are interested than it can abdicate its police powers in the administration of government and the preservation of the peace. Id. at 453, 13 S.Ct. 110. While the Court noted that such lands need not, under all circumstances, be perpetually held in trust, it recognized that in effecting transfers, the public interest is always paramount, providing that [t]he control of the State for the purposes of the trust can never be lost, except as to such parcels as are used in promoting the interests of the public therein, or can be disposed of without any substantial impairment of the public interest in the lands and waters remaining. Id.