## Facts

- Larry H. Marks, Jr. owned tidelands in Tomales Bay under an 1874 state patent; Peter D. Whitney owned adjacent upland property fronted by Marks’s tidelands.
- The parties litigated a quiet title action to resolve a boundary dispute and to stop Whitney from asserting rights in Marks’s property.
- At high tide the tidelands were covered by navigable waters; Whitney used the area to reach Tomales Bay and an existing seven-foot-wide wharf.
- Marks claimed complete ownership, including the right to fill and develop the tidelands.
- Whitney opposed filling and development, claiming it would impair (a) his littoral access and (b) public rights in the tidelands and navigable waters.
- Whitney sought declarations that Marks’s title was burdened by a public-trust easement and by prescriptive rights, including access across the tidelands and wharf use.
- The trial court fixed the boundary, recognized a limited prescriptive easement to maintain and use the wharf, and allowed Marks to fill and develop if Whitney’s access strip to deep water was preserved.
- The trial court ruled Whitney lacked standing to raise the public-trust issue and made no finding on whether the tidelands were burdened by the public trust.
- Whitney appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether an adjacent upland owner and member of the public has standing to assert that privately patented tidelands are burdened by a public-trust easement limiting filling and development.
2. Whether the tidelands remained subject to the public trust notwithstanding the patent.
3. What interests the public trust protects, including whether it extends beyond navigation, commerce, and fishing to recreational and ecological uses.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court reversed and remanded.
- Whitney had standing to raise the public-trust issue as both a littoral owner affected by loss of access and as a member of the public seeking to prevent impairment of trust uses.
- The patented tidelands were burdened by a continuing public-trust easement.
- Public-trust uses include not only navigation, commerce, and fishing, but also recreational uses and preservation of tidelands in their natural state for ecological and open-space purposes.
- The trial court’s disposition was inadequate because it did not account for the continuing public-trust limitation on private filling and development.

## Legal Principles

- The state holds tidelands and submerged lands under navigable waters in trust for the people; private conveyances do not terminate the trust absent clear legislative intent.
- Grants of trust lands are strictly construed; doubts are resolved in favor of preserving public-trust purposes.
- Public-trust purposes include navigation, commerce, and fishing, and also recreational uses (including boating, swimming, and general water-related recreation).
- Public-trust purposes also include environmental interests, such as preserving tidelands and submerged lands in their natural condition for scientific study, habitat, open space, and protection of scenic and climatic values.
- Private use of patented tidelands is subordinate to the public trust where the trust has not been lawfully extinguished, and proposed development must be evaluated for consistency with trust purposes.

## Conclusion

The court held that a neighboring upland owner may litigate public-trust limitations on patented tidelands and that such lands remain burdened by a public-trust easement protecting recreational and ecological values as well as traditional navigation-related uses, requiring reconsideration of any filling or development under that framework.


Marks v. Whitney, 491 P.2d 374 (Cal. 1971)