Court Opinion

ID: 9517597
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:22:52.885924+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:34:45.528557
License: Public Domain

Wilkins, J.
(concurring, with whom Nolan, J., joins). The court has glorified the plaintiff’s rights and, as a result, has obliged itself to consider questions concerning public nuisance it need not have reached. Simply put, the plaintiff has no special rights on which he could base a valid public nuisance claim or a claim of recovery for any statutory violation. The plaintiff had a revocable permit to take shellfish from a contaminated shellfish area. G. L. c. 130, § 75 (1984 ed.). The director of the division of marine fisheries could revoke that permit (id.), and in effect he did just that from November 15, 1983, *151until December 1, 1983. Once all permits to take shellfish from the contaminated areas were revoked, the plaintiff had no valid claim based on public nuisance (or on any other theory) because neither he nor anyone else had any right to take shellfish from the contaminated area.
The court, therefore, should not have concluded that the plaintiff would have had a claim in public nuisance had the defendant been a nongovernmental entity. I find it particularly unfortunate that the court decided, unnecessarily, that some public nuisance claims are governed by G. L. c. 258 (1984 ed.) and that others are not.