Reserved Rights Doctrine Law and Legal Definition
Reserved rights doctrine, in the employment context, refers to a clause in an employment contract that lists management's rights or prerogatives. Such clauses state that the management has full authority over the items listed thereunder unless the contract limits management's rights in a particular area.
Thee is also a reserved rights doctrine applicable to federal water rights. The doctrine of reserved water rights evolved to ensure that Indian reservations and public lands set aside by the federal government would have sufficient water to fulfill the purposes for which they were established. These rights are created when the federal government withdraws land from the public domain to establish a federal reservation such as a national park, forest, or Indian reservation. By this action, the government is held to have reserved water rights sufficient for the primary purpose for which the land was withdrawn.