Here is a hypothetical situation that presents us with a challenging conundrum that would drive most legal scholars and moral philosophers mad. There is as a person in a vegetive state who is hooked up to a variety of life-sustaining medical equipment (feeding-tube, ventilator etc.). Let’s say that the individual is married, and their spouse has been their legal guardian since they have become clinically brain dead. Does the parents of the incapacitated person have a say over the end-of-life decision making for their child? Should this heavy burden be left to the spouse and rightful guardian? It should be noted that the moral analysis must be separated from the determination of legality. All because something is legal does not necessarily make it moral. For instance, abortion in the United States is sanctioned around quasi-arbitrary timeframes with little consideration for situational context or biological development of the fetus. The decree of legislative fiat does not automatically make a policy moral. There are many legal protections within American statutory law that prevent individuals from facing criminal penalty or ligation. If crimes against persons and property cannot be subjected to restorative justice then there is no point in calling a legal system just. In other words, we will be reviewing this situation from a philosophical standpoint, specifically from the perspective of individual property rights.
The above scenario is not quite so hypothetical but is a concise description of the Terri Schiavo case. However, one striking difference between the scenario presented above and the Schiavo case is that :
Terri Schiavo breathes on her own. She is not on a ventilator or respirator. Although she swallows, she is sustained through a gastric feeding tube. She is not in distress or imminent danger of death.(P.5).
Despite Schiavo’s lack of cognitive functionality for the most part she was able to “live” in the most basic sense of the term. It should also be note that prior to her cognitive impairment she made no will directing her “wishes” for medical treatment. Also including end-of-life decisions. Therefore, leaving the variable of individual consent obscured by Schiavo’s incapacitated state. There was a rift between Schiavo’s husband/ guardian wanted to remove her feeding tube while her parents staunchly disagreed with this decision. Ultimately, the courts sided with the husband and Terri ended up dying after having her feeding tube removed. This may have been the legally permitted course of events, but was it moral from the paradigm of individual property rights?
The economist and Libertarian Philosopher Walter Block provides a remedy to this quandary squarely from the standpoint of Lockean property rights. A grown adult who has lost their cognitive faculties is analogous to a child and exist in purgatorial grey area when it comes to the prospect of Lockean ownership (p.5).Block takes the Rothbardian approach to addressing a parents required commitment to child rearing, which in fact allows parents to relinquish this right (p. 6). Much like how Lockean homesteading does not preclude an economic agent from taking ownership of an abandoned patch of land, this analogy can be applied to raising children. If an adult within the community is willing to devout the resources to raising a child discarded in dumpster, this should count as a transfer of guardianship (p.7). Based upon the premise of Lockean homesteading the Supreme Court of Florida was morally wrong in assigning the right to end Terri Schiavo’s life to her husband. Through wanting to end her life with no prior record or request of her wanting such measures taken, he effectively relinquished his guardianship. Clearly he did not do so in the modern legal sense, but he did so within the context of Lockean property rights. If her parents were willing to assume guardianship of their daughter then the court’s decision is nothing more than perverse.
And if they are, then whoever is at first control of her must maintain her; if he refuses, her guardianship reverts to the second closest party, her parents. If they will not homestead her, then perhaps her siblings. If not them, then anyone who wishes to take up this burden. Based on the number of protests at the callous way she is being treated ( Block, 2011, p.7)
The initial shift towards an unconstrained Public Trust Doctrine may have begun with the Illinois Central case. The emergence of a truly fluid Public Trust jurisprudence did appear until the early 1970s. The cultural revolution of the 1960s permeated an activistic ethos that eventually made its way to the legal system. It was first noted by legal scholar Joseph Sax, an environmental lawyer who was a strong advocate of the conservation movement. Professor Sax was the first legal theorists to suggest the Public Trust Doctrine was not being used to its full potential. Sax believed that a more liberal application of the doctrine could be utilized to benefit the objectives of the environmental movement. Implicitly arguing that the preservation of natural resources is within the scope of the legal construct. Due to the fact that nature itself is a commons, that we all benefit from clean water, air, and a modest reserve of nonrenewable resources.
However, over the years the Public Trust Doctrine has been extended far beyond the original intentions of the concept. The doctrine was initially applied to manage public waterways, fishing, and commercial purposes. Since its inception in the United States has been stretched to be utilized in the interests of recreation and political objectives. The most disturbing aspect of this evolution to an unchained doctrine has been the blatant erosion of private property rights. In most applications of land seized by the government in the name of public trust, the takings clause under the fifth amendment. Meaning that equivalent property value compensation is not required for land commandeered for the “public good”. The lack of adequate compensation for land taken operates as nothing more than a redistribution of property. Whether this transfer is for the moral good of clean water, recreation, or free passage through a navigable body of water, it is the same result. As the doctrine becomes more malleable, less justifiable these coercive acquisitions become. The hapless side effect of the courts showing less discipline in their application of this construct starts to become arbitrary.
An Unchained Doctrine:
As previously mentioned, in the 1970s the doctrine began to radically drift away from its Common Law roots. These ties were severed by the “prima facie rule that extends state title to submerged lands, rather than as evidentiary presumption of the title” (p.195). Several courts have ever ruled that the alienation of any public lands is a clear violation of the state’s Public Trust obligations. Despite the fact that these opinions run counter decisions made by the Supreme Court (p.195). The 1970s being the formative years of the environmentalism movement, legal scholars started to turn to the doctrine as a means of reaching lofty political goals. Those sympathetic to the conservation movement calling for “..effective judicial intervention..” (p.195). Posing as the haunting battle cry of the ambitious legal scholar Joseph Sax. Sax called for a liberating doctrine. Fully proclaim the need shift in the doctrine’s utilization in his seminal paper: The Public Trust Doctrine in Natural Resource Law: Effective Judicial Intervention(p.196)
Even a decade later Sax is just as fervent as he was back in the 1970s of being a proponent of loosely applied Public Trust Doctrine. In his paper, Liberating the Public Trust Doctrine from Its Historical Shackles, Sax surmises that the concept has been constrained by historical precedence. He succinctly distills the general idea of the doctrine to the single function of generating stable expectations of common resources (p.4). He suggests is the purpose of all property rights is to create and maintaining expectations. Keeping within the obligations of the trustee (the government) must utilize mechanisms to preserve the stability of these expectations. Identify areas of destabilization that can benefit from a creative application of the construct (p.9). From the standpoint of judicial consistency, the advocacy of a “use-it-where-it-fits” approach is quite a trouble. If advocates of the doctrine want to expand the scope of its use, they could at the very least formulate unwavering parameters for its application. In the event, the situation does not meet the test, the doctrine cannot be used. However, this would require the Public Trust Doctrine to transition from a semi-unwritten rule to a codified legal convention. While there are many troubling aspects regarding making the doctrine into statutory law, at least there would be some institutional pressure to constrain frivolous or inappropriate application.
Sax goes so far as to suggest that the doctrine can and should be applied with no regard for previous case precedence. In other words, no need to cite previous cases because that will only limit the doctrine from achieving its ends. Staying within the context of historical uses of Public Trust only serves to continue to hold it back from serving its purpose (p.10). Past case precedence is the ultimate safeguard against arbitrary adjudication of law. To exposit the idea that this is unnecessary in the discretionary deliberations surrounding the doctrine is wrong on so many levels. With no institutional constraints or reliance on past adjudicatory history, the doctrine becomes formless. No rules limiting it, allowing it to become amorphous and be applied at the pleasure of the judge. Making it subject to the biases and whims of the judge(s) ruling on the case.
The First Victim of The Freed Public Trust Doctrine:
One of the first cases to feature Sax’s brand of jurisprudence was in the Just case, decided in 1972 two years after his paper has been published (p.196). In 1961, the Just family purchased approximately thirty-six acres of land “along the south shore of Lake Noquebay”. The area in which they had purchased this land was designated as marsh/swampland. However, Marinette county’s shoreland zoning ordinance number 24, went into effect in October 1967 requiring permits for any alterations impacting wetland habits. In the months of February and March 1968, Mr. Just filled in an area of his property that was technically considered wetlands with sand. The litigant did so without procuring a permit. It should be noted that it has also been claimed that he was denied the ability to obtain a permit by the county. Operating as a circuitous form of unconstitutional “takings”(p.196). After all, he did own the portion of the shore in which he did fill in with sand. But it was ruled by the court that the police power of the state can extend to the enforcement of zoning laws. Declaring it within the scope of the state’s Public Trust duties to preserve the natural condition of the wetlands for navigation, fishing, recreation, and “scenic beauty” (p.196). Mr. Just was denied this right to alter his property in the absence of any degree of just compensation.
Regardless of the intention or objectives of denying the alteration of the wetlands two concerns arise. The first concern being would couldn’t have Just have been grandfathered out of having to acquire a permit? He did purchase the land years prior to the implementation of the new zoning ordinances. If we go by the laws governing water use rights (a different but adjacent area of law) in certain parts of the country there is a first-come, first-served policy. This is known as an appropriative system of water rights. Generally under this type of system whoever has the oldest prior use date of harvesting the water to beneficial use has the primacy to water usage. Keeping this logic in mind, could the same apply to other laws as well. Hence, why excluding the litigant from the permit requirement makes sense. He bought the land prior to the implementation of the zoning requirements, he gets grandfathered in.
The second and more profound concern is what does this court decision say about the state of property rights? There wasn’t any direct evidence that Mr. Just’s actions engendered any genuine harm to the environment. Per the courts’, ruling it appears there was a strong emphasis on keeping the wetlands intact. Versus cited or proving ecological harm caused by filling in that patch of wetlands with sand, the court justified the uncompensated takings with a blanket explanation defending their position. Of the core reasons, recreation and “scenic beauty” were cited as being reasonable justifications for invoking police power of the state. Both seem awfully frivolous reasons to violates some property rights. Also, how does the court ascertain the objective of maintaining “scenic beauty”. Isn’t that an extremely subjective criterion? One man’s eyesore is another man’s oasis.
Inverted logic 