The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) Granted public trust lands remain subject to the supervision of the state and the state retains its duty to protect the public interest in granted public trust lands.
(b) The state acts both as the trustor and the representative of the beneficiaries, who are all of the people of this state, with regard to public trust lands, and a grantee of public trust lands, including tidelands and submerged lands, acts as a trustee, with the granted tidelands and submerged lands as the corpus of the trust.
(c) A grantee may fulfill its fiduciary duties as trustee by determining the application of each of the following duties, all of which are applicable under common trust principles:
(1) The duty of loyalty.
(2) The duty of care.
(3) The duty of full disclosure.
(4) The duty to keep clear and adequate records and accounts.
(5) The duty to administer the trust solely in the interest of the beneficiaries.
(6) The duty to act impartially in managing the trust property.
(7) The duty to not use or deal with trust property for the trustee’s own profit or for any other purpose unconnected with the trust, and to not take part in a transaction in which the trustee has an interest adverse to the beneficiaries.
(8) The duty to take reasonable steps under the circumstances to take and keep control of and to preserve the trust property.
(9) The duty to make the trust property productive under the circumstances and in furtherance of the purposes of the trust.
(10) The duty to keep the trust property separate from other property not subject to the trust and to see that the trust property is designated as property of the trust.
(11) The duty to take reasonable steps to enforce claims that are part of the trust property.
(12) The duty to take reasonable steps to defend actions that may result in a loss to the trust.
(13) The duty to not delegate to others the performance of acts that the trustee can reasonably be required to perform and to not transfer the administration of the trust to a cotrustee. If a trustee has properly delegated a matter to an agent, the trustee has a duty to exercise direct supervision over the performance of the delegated matter.
(d) All duties endowed upon a trustee of state lands shall depend upon the terms of the trust, and if there is no provision, express or implied, within the terms of the trust, a statute, or a grant, the trustee’s duties shall be interpreted and determined by principles and rules evolved by courts of equity with respect to common trust principles.
(e) Notwithstanding any other law, and in addition to any other rights and capacities of a trustee to act under law, a trustee of public trust lands shall have the right to bring any action related to its granted public trust lands, including an action to abate a public nuisance, as a representative of the beneficiaries.
(f) Common trust principles do not nullify an act of the Legislature or modify its duty under the California Constitution to do all things necessary to execute and administer the public trust.
(Amended by Stats. 2016, Ch. 368, Sec. 11. (SB 859) Effective September 14, 2016.)