elkduds
Well-known member
http://www.emwh.org/public access/Crazy Mountains/legal/Intent to sue Feb 2019.pdf
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I certainly don’t know any details here but I worked for the Forest Service and was involved in several right of way and easement issues. Even though there is a claim here that the public has a right to cross the private land I would want to see the actual right of way agreement before saying that was true. There are many Forest Service roads and trails on private land with no legal access. As well as many private roads crossing public land with no legal access. One reason for this is that for most of the existence of the Forest Service district rangers spent their whole career on the same district and they were good buddies with the local land owners. This resulted in a lot of hand shake deals that didn’t bother with legalities. Now the rangers are gone, and the landownership has changed and the new land owners are exercising their legal right.
Like say I don’t know if that is the case here but if the public does indeed have a right to cross the private land it would seem like they should be suing the landowner rather than the forest service.
No, but there does need to be some kind of documentation. Government can't just say that people have the right to trespass on private land.
I don't know the details of the case. Note that they are suing the Forest Service to force them to get these trails open; they are not suing the landowners. This is what I wanted to do from the start as an alternative to getting the ticket, but these things take time and I felt it was important to keep the trail used until then. Turns out the prosecutor was serious about assisting this landowner block a trail that happened to also go through the prosecutor's land (conflict of interest!). This collusion makes it really hard to use the trail adversely to maintain the claim to a prescriptive easement so this (in my opinion) is a next step.Rob, What is your take on the strength of their case? Is it actually going to work? It seems like a slam dunk after reading the letter, but I'm sure it was meant to sound that way.
I certainly don’t know any details here but I worked for the Forest Service and was involved in several right of way and easement issues. Even though there is a claim here that the public has a right to cross the private land I would want to see the actual right of way agreement before saying that was true. There are many Forest Service roads and trails on private land with no legal access. As well as many private roads crossing public land with no legal access. One reason for this is that for most of the existence of the Forest Service district rangers spent their whole career on the same district and they were good buddies with the local land owners. This resulted in a lot of hand shake deals that didn’t bother with legalities. Now the rangers are gone, and the landownership has changed and the new land owners are exercising their legal right.
Like say I don’t know if that is the case here but if the public does indeed have a right to cross the private land it would seem like they should be suing the landowner rather than the forest service.