The public Trust Doctrine

Chapter 2 of Yannacone’s seminal treatise on environmental law published in 1972 was the first practical guide to the application of the ancient common-law doctrine of the public trust to the modern problems of protecting unique national natural resource treasures from damage and destruction under the rubric of “improving private property.”

Concluding the chapter was a detailed analysis of the landmark Florissant fossil beds litigation.

As a result of Yannacone’s success in saving the Florissant fossil beds from the bulldozers of developers in 1969, and his early litigation establishing the common law right of public access to navigable waters, a fundamental element of the trust doctrine, the public now has access to many of the beaches on the East Coast, West Coast, and Gulfcoast which used to be the playgrounds of only the rich and famous.

The trust Doctrine begins in Ancient Rome in the early days of the Republic and can be found in the orations of Cicero on the natural law and jurisprudence. It became a cornerstone of English law after Magna Carta and eventually came to America. Ther origins are reported and analyzed by the eminent colonial historian, the late Dr. W. Keith Kavenagh, Esq. in Chapter 6 of his definitive work, Vanishing Tidelands.

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