McGarvey v. Whittredge

Plaintiffs owned intertidal land on Maine's coast that lay in front of the property of Defendants. Defendants owned a commercial scuba diving business and would walk with their clients from their property onto and across Plaintiffs' intertidal land in order to scuba dive. Plaintiffs filed a declaratory judgment action seeking a determination that Defendants had no right to cross their intertidal land for scuba diving and seeking an injunction prohibiting such use. The superior court granted summary judgment in favor of Defendants, declaring that crossing the Plaintiffs' intertidal land to access the water for recreational or commercial scuba diving was within the public's right to use intertidal land for navigation. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding, as a matter of Maine common law, the public has a right to walk across intertidal lands to reach the ocean for purposes of scuba diving.