Poyner Spruill is pleased to announce a significant court victory in favor of the Coastal Conservation Association of North Carolina (“CCA NC”) and 86 individual citizens in their lawsuit to hold the State accountable for failing to protect North Carolina’s coastal fisheries. Following a six-week trial earlier this year, the Wake County Superior Court issued a 190-page ruling holding the State liable based on “overwhelming evidence” that the State breached its legal obligations to North Carolina citizens. Further proceedings addressing remedies needed to cure the State’s management failures and restore North Carolina’s once-abundant coastal fisheries are expected to follow.
Poyner Spruill filed the lawsuit in 2020 on behalf of CCA NC and 86 citizen plaintiffs, including 5 former members of North Carolina’s Marine Fisheries Commission. Through six years of hard-fought litigation, the plaintiffs were able to prove that by allowing North Carolina’s coastal fisheries to deteriorate and collapse, the State violated the legal rights of North Carolinians to fish and harvest fish—rights guaranteed to them under the public-trust doctrine and the North Carolina Constitution.
The six years of litigation included proceedings before the Court of Appeals, which unanimously ruled in favor of CCA NC and the individual plaintiffs in 2022. In that ruling, the Court of Appeals held that the State has “an affirmative duty” under the public-trust doctrine and the North Carolina Constitution to “preserve the people’s right to fish and harvest fish,” which includes a “duty to preserve fisheries for the benefit of the public” and a “duty to keep fisheries safe from injury, harm, or destruction for all time.” In the Wake County Superior Court’s ruling, the Court applied that decision as binding precedent, finding that the extensive evidence at trial, including comprehensive expert testimony, “overwhelmingly established” that the State has failed to meet those standards. As one of many examples of the State’s extensive failures, the Court cited undisputed evidence that not a single one of North Carolina’s 13 state-managed coastal fish stocks is currently viable.
CA NC Executive Director David Sneed praised the Court’s ruling as “an opportunity,” urging North Carolina’s fisheries managers and elected officials to bring about fisheries management reforms to rebuild our overfished and collapsed coastal fisheries, and then keep them sustainable once restored. “With this ruling, we are calling on the general public, our elected officials, our scientific community, and state fisheries managers to join together with us, roll up our sleeves, and commit to doing the hard work necessary to restore our coastal fisheries resources for the benefit of all citizens and future generations.”
