The Surfrider Foundation Maine Chapter intends to participate as an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) party and represent the voice of low-impact recreational beach users. This is an important case for all Mainers and Surfrider members who enjoy Maine beaches and deserve to exercise their recreational rights along the shore.
The Maine Supreme Court has an opportunity to revisit and correct a set of wrongly decided legal cases from the 1980s that have restricted Mainers’ rightful access to their beaches.
In those cases, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court held, in 1986 and 1989, that shorefront property owners in the State own fee title all the way to the mean low tideline, thus including the “intertidal zone” between the mean low and mean high tidelines, and that the intertidal zone is subject only to a public easement for “fishing, fowling, and navigation,” but not general recreational use.
This has led to the absurd result, as noted by former Chief Justice Leigh Saufley that a person may walk along a Maine beach carrying a fishing rod or a gun, but may not walk along that same beach empty-handed or carrying a surfboard.
* Any funds raised in excess of current legal fees in this effort will go towards the Surfrider Maine Chapter’s programs and work protecting Maine’s coast. *
