What’s The Problem?
At Issue - Lawsuit - Funding - News - Opinions
AT ISSUE: Maine’s Supreme Court got it wrong in 1989
They made a mistake
Here’s what this is all about: mistakes can be corrected, even if that means going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Several Maine citizens and Maine property owners filed a lawsuit in 2021 against Defendants who are harassing fellow citizens just for sitting on a beach. These Defendants hope to discourage Maine people from enjoying the intertidal zone and the bounty of the Maine coast.
The intertidal zone is the land from the low tide mark to the high tide mark.The intimidation tactics of the Defendants in this lawsuit can be directly attributed to an incorrect 4-3 decision by the Maine Supreme Court in 1989 that said beachfront folks may prevent others from using beaches and intertidal lands.
Yes, even Supreme Court judges can make mistakes. In deciding the 1989 case incorrectly, 4 judges ignored ancient law, English common law, rights Maine acquired when we became a state in 1820, many Maine and U.S. Supreme Court cases, and something called the “equal footing” doctrine.
They also ignored specific constitutional limitations on the powers of the judicial branch. In other words, 4 judges over-stepped their bounds.
They can correct their mistake
The lawsuit - YOUR lawsuit - is the long-awaited legal remedy designed to return use of Maine’s intertidal lands (our Maine beaches) to the people who rightfully own them - you, your family and all their descendants, into perpetuity.