September 18, 2026 — The state is appealing a trial judge’s recent ruling that North Carolina government has failed to meet its constitutional obligation to maintain state fisheries.
Lawyers in state Attorney General Jeff Jackson’s office filed a notice of appeal Wednesday.
“The Order in Liability Phase affects a substantial right that would be lost, prejudiced, and/or inadequately preserved without an immediate appeal,” according to the one-paragraph notice.
Wake County Superior Court Judge Bryan Collins issued his 190-page ruling on Aug. 17, nearly six months after he conducted a trial that extended from January into February.
“On this trial record reflecting approximately six weeks of evidence, and after carefully weighing all of the evidence presented, the Court concludes, based on the preponderance of the evidence … that the State has failed to meet its ‘obligation to manage and protect fisheries for the benefit of the general public’ as required under the public-trust doctrine, failed to ‘keep fisheries safe from injury, harm, or destruction for all time’ as required under Article I, Section 38, and failed to ‘protect the harvestable fish population “for the benefit of the citizenry”’ as required under Article XIV, Section 5,” Collins wrote in an order issued Monday.
The Coastal Conservation Association of North Carolina led a group of more than 80 plaintiffs that sued the state in 2020.
“The State argues that Plaintiffs have the burden of proof and cannot carry that burden due to the substantial gaps in crucial data,” Collins wrote. “That argument is specious at best. It is the State’s duty to manage our public trust fish. The evidence is overwhelming that one of the critical aspects of that duty is to collect adequate data. The data gaps the Court has found in this case are evidence themselves of management failures by the State and not lack of evidence from Plaintiffs.”