Description: Action seeking declaration that state had obligation to protect atmosphere as public trust and regulate greenhouse emissions.
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Chernaik v. Brown
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 10/22/2020 Opinion Download Supreme Court affirmed Court of Appeals decision that public trust doctrine does not impose fiduciary obligation. Oregon Supreme Court Said Public Trust Doctrine Did Not Impose Obligation to Protect Resources from Climate Change. The Supreme Court of Oregon rejected youth plaintiffs’ arguments that the public trust doctrine should be expanded to encompass additional natural resources and that the doctrine imposes affirmative fiduciary obligations on the State to protect trust resources from substantial impairment caused by climate change. With respect to the scope of the doctrine, the Supreme Court said the public trust doctrine extends both to the State navigable waters and to the State’s submerged and submersible lands. (A trial court had interpreted the scope more narrowly.) Although the court agreed with the plaintiffs that the doctrine “can be modified to reflect changes in society’s needs,” the court rejected the plaintiffs’ “expansive test” for determining which resources should be protected, finding that the plaintiffs’ two-factor test—(1) Is the resource not easily held or improved and (2) Is the resource of great value to the public for uses such as commerce, navigation, hunting, and fishing—would fail to provide “practical limitations.” The court therefore declined to expand the doctrine to cover additional resources, including the atmosphere. Regarding the State’s obligations under the public trust doctrine, the court rejected the plaintiffs’ contention that the doctrine imposes obligations like the obligations trustees of private trusts owe to beneficiaries. The court indicated that importing private trust principles “could result in a fundamental restructuring of the public trust doctrine and impose new obligations on the State.” The chief justice dissented, writing that in her view the judicial branch has “a role to play” in addressing the harms of climate change. She said the court “can and should issue a declaration that the state has an affirmative fiduciary duty to act reasonably to prevent substantial impairment of public trust resources.” -
Chernaik v. Brown
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 01/09/2019 Opinion Download Affirming granting of State's motion for summary judgment and directing trial court to enter judgment declaring parties' rights. Oregon Appellate Court Found No State Obligation to Protect Public-Trust Resources from Climate Change. In a lawsuit brought in 2011 by minor children (now adults), the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled that the Oregon common-law public-trust doctrine did not impose a fiduciary obligation on the State to affirmatively protect public-trust resources from climate change impacts. The appellate court concluded that the doctrine was “rooted in the idea that the state is restrained from disposing or allowing uses of public-trust resources that substantially impair the recognized public use of those resources” and found no source under the doctrine for imposing duties on the State to “affirmatively act to protect public-trust resources from the effects of climate change.” The appellate court therefore directed a trial court to enter a declaratory judgment in favor the State defendants. The appellate court declined to address other issues raised by the plaintiffs on appeal, including whether the public-trust doctrine applied to resources other than submerged or submersible lands. -
Chernaik v. Brown
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 05/11/2015 Opinion and Order Download Opinion and order issued granting summary judgment to defendants. On remand, an Oregon Circuit Court ruled that the State’s public trust doctrine applied only to submerged and submersible lands, and not to other resources such as the atmosphere, waters of the State, beaches and shorelands, and fish and wildlife. With respect to the atmosphere, the court questioned “whether the atmosphere is a ‘natural resource’ at all.” The court further declared that the State did not have a fiduciary obligation to protect submerged and submersible lands from the impacts of climate change, concluding that the public trust doctrine merely restricted the ability of the State to entirely alienate such lands. The court also said that granting the relief sought by plaintiffs could violate the separation of powers doctrine, and that the court would not have had sufficient information before it to make a determination as to appropriate concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The plaintiffs indicated that they would appeal the decision. An Oregon appellate court previously reversed the circuit court’s determination that it did not have jurisdiction over the lawsuit. 04/05/2012 Opinion and Order Download Opinion and order issued granting motion to dismiss. 05/19/2011 Complaint Download Amended complaint filed. -
Chernaik v. Kitzhaber
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 06/11/2014 Opinion Download Opinion issued reversing dismissal of action and remanding to trial court. The Oregon Court of Appeals reversed a trial court’s dismissal of a public trust doctrine lawsuit. The trial court had concluded that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the action, in which plaintiffs sought declaratory and equitable relief for the State of Oregon’s failures to meet its fiduciary obligations to protect natural resources such as the atmosphere from the impacts of climate change. The trial court grounded its conclusion in separation of powers and political question concerns. The appellate court ruled that the trial court had authority under the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act to issue a declaration of whether the atmosphere and other natural resources were “trust resources” that the State of Oregon had a fiduciary obligation to protect from climate change impacts. The court rejected defendants’ contention that such declarations would not amount to the sort of “meaningful relief” required to make plaintiffs’ claims justiciable. The appellate court declined to address the merits of plaintiffs’ claims, indicating that such a determination would only be possible after the parties had litigated the merits and a court had declared “the scope of the public trust doctrine and defendants’ obligations, if any, under it.”