If it’s not in writing, you can’t enforce it.

So ruled Rhode Island Associate Justice Kristen Rodgers in an Aug. 9 decision, affirming a Barrington couple’s argument that they should not have to maintain a public access walkway along a seawall at the edge of their property because the public access permit wasn’t included in land records until years later. 

Rodgers’ 18-page order overturns a December decision by the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council, calling its decree to maintain public access to the seawall “non-sensical” and “in no support of the law.”

“Accepting CRMC’s conclusion would mandate that every unrecorded interest in property will ultimately become enforceable against bona fide purchaser for value whenever that unrecorded interest surfaces,” Rodgers wrote in the decision. 

CRMC affirms public access along Barrington seawall despite lack of documentation

The ruling is the latest twist in a three-year battle between state coastal regulators and Holly and Lance Sheffield, who purchased the six-bedroom home on Barrington’s Nayatt Road in May 2021. The couple has insisted in oral and written testimony that they had no idea the 430-foot-long seawall separating their property from Narragansett Bay must include a 2-foot-wide public path to the adjacent public access point on Elm Lane. 

Daniel Procaccini Jr., the attorney representing the Sheffields, said his clients were pleased with the decision.

“The Court recognized what they have said from the very beginning—CRMC cannot enforce an unrecorded assent against unknowing, innocent homeowners,” Procaccini said in an email Tuesday. “It is disappointing that my clients had to spend the better part of 3 years litigating this issue through multiple appeals to obtain a ruling that was obvious from the outset. The Sheffields are now looking forward to putting this issue behind them and to enjoying the same level of privacy that any homeowner could expect.”

But the dispute may not be settled.

“The CRMC is reviewing the court’s decision and is considering appealing it to the Supreme Court,” Laura Dwyer, an agency spokesperson, said in an email Tuesday. 

The 1982 permit requiring the public access point was never entered into land records, because state law didn’t require such recordings until 1988. Further obscuring access to the information were subdivisions of the land and multiple sales since the 1982 permit.

But after the couple put up wire fencing, cameras, and later a security guard to block alleged “trespassers,” state coastal regulators intervened, issuing a pair of cease and desist orders in September 2021 and May 2022 based on the 1982 public access permit.

The dispute landed in Providence County Superior Court in March 2023 because the council failed to respond to the Sheffields’ petition to administratively dismiss the public access requirement within the time frame set out by state law. A judge sent the issue back to  the CRMC in November 2023 with a strict, 20-day deadline to make its decision. The council upheld public access to the path, maintaining that the Sheffields’ plea of ignorance did not let them flout state law enshrining shoreline access. Less than a week later, the Sheffields through their attorney appealed the decision back to Superior Court. The December complaint alleges the council was “arbitrary, capricious and legally erroneous,” pointing to the lack of case law or state statute cited by the council to back up its decision.

“Indeed, in CRMC’s revisionist history, it appears no court had any occasion to comment on this unique exception to an otherwise well-understood and broadly applicable doctrine,” the complaint states.

The CRMC in response pointed to new evidence shared in the Sheffields’ court testimony — but not previously included in its public decision process — regarding Holly Sheffield’s familiarity with state coastal regulations; in other words, she should have known to investigate potential rules around the seawall. The CRMC argued the omitted information meant the decision should be sent back (again) to the state agency. 

But Rodgers disagreed, instead siding with the Sheffields based on state law allowing for judicial review when all other administrative options for contested cases were “exhausted.”