## Facts

- Two Oregon minors and their guardians sued the Governor and the State, alleging that greenhouse gas emissions were substantially impairing natural resources through climate change and ocean acidification.
- Plaintiffs asserted that Oregon’s public trust doctrine covers a broad set of natural resources, including the atmosphere, and that the State has trustee-like fiduciary duties to prevent substantial impairment.
- Plaintiffs sought declaratory relief recognizing that broad trust and those fiduciary duties, and injunctive relief requiring annual statewide carbon accounting and a court-supervised carbon-reduction plan.
- The State did not dispute that climate change harms Oregon, but disputed plaintiffs’ legal theory about the doctrine’s scope and the State’s asserted obligations.
- The circuit court granted summary judgment to the State, denied plaintiffs’ partial summary judgment, and dismissed the action.
- The Court of Appeals vacated the dismissal and remanded for entry of a declaratory judgment clarifying the parties’ rights under the public trust doctrine.
- Plaintiffs sought Supreme Court review, urging the doctrine’s expansion to address climate harms.

## Issues

1. Whether Oregon’s public trust doctrine extends beyond navigable waters and their submerged/submersible lands to other resources such as the atmosphere, non-navigable waters, and wildlife.
2. Whether the doctrine imposes private-trust-like fiduciary duties on the State, including an affirmative duty to prevent substantial impairment of trust resources from greenhouse gas emissions.
3. Whether the proper judicial relief was dismissal or a declaratory judgment defining the doctrine’s scope and any related state obligations.

## Decision

- The court held that Oregon’s public trust doctrine, as currently recognized, applies to navigable waters and the submerged and submersible lands beneath them.
- The court declined to extend the doctrine to additional natural resources, including the atmosphere, in this case.
- The court rejected plaintiffs’ contention that the doctrine imposes fiduciary duties equivalent to those of a private common-law trustee, including a duty to prevent substantial impairment.
- The court affirmed the Court of Appeals’ disposition vacating the circuit court’s judgment and remanded for entry of a declaratory judgment consistent with the Supreme Court’s limited interpretation.

## Legal Principles

- Oregon’s public trust doctrine is presently limited to navigable waters and the submerged and submersible lands underlying those waters.
- Expansion of the doctrine to new categories of natural resources is not presumed and will not be adopted absent a sufficient basis in Oregon law.
- The doctrine does not automatically import the fiduciary-duty framework of private trust law; it does not create a judicially enforceable affirmative duty requiring the State to implement broad policy measures to prevent impairment.
- When dismissal prevents clarification of the parties’ rights under an asserted doctrine, declaratory relief may be the appropriate form of judgment to define the doctrine’s scope and reject unsupported theories.

## Conclusion

The Oregon Supreme Court narrowed the public trust doctrine to navigable waters and their underlying lands, refused to include the atmosphere or other resources, and declined to impose private-trust-style fiduciary duties requiring affirmative climate planning; the case was remanded for a declaratory judgment reflecting those limits.


Chernaik v. Brown, 367 Or. 143, 475 P.3d 68 (Or. 2020)