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

Heading: Recent Maine Common Law

Text: [¶ 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]