SFR Corner crossing update

Sorta fishing-related
Yes.

I came from Michigan in 1954. I get a pass...
 
My friend Angus Thuermer has been doing a lot of great reporting on this in WyoFile. The link in the OP is an old one, @billie linked to a recent one. There are more articles for anyone who wants a deeper dive. Apparently a public access group is promoting providing funds to install passages through fences at some corners to permit transit across the corners while keeping livestock from getting through. Sounds like a good idea.
 
Billy said:
wyofile.com

Ranch owner asks Supreme Court to decide corner crossing’s legality, says lower court ‘inverted' law - WyoFile

Fred Eshelman’s petition for high-court review asserts that 10th Circuit victory for hunters and the public to access public land constitutes an unconstitutional taking of private property.
wyofile.com wyofile.com

Final say coming up...
Click to expand...
You know they were waiting to see if the public land fire sale made it thru the latest bill. Not surprised at all that now that's passed (for now) this is back on the docket. Ultimately, I don't think it will end how they want - which would be a huge win. There's two previous SCOTUS cases that could help kill this once and for all.

Understanding the Corner Crossing Decision and the UIA

www.uwyo.edu www.uwyo.edu

Highlights from the link:

I. History of the Checkerboard & Origins of the UIA

The checkerboarded pattern of land ownership at issue stems from the mid-19th century when Congress granted public lands to railroad companies via the Union Pacific Act of 1862.6 For each mile of track laid by a railroad company, the federal government granted the company the odd-numbered lots surrounding the railway right-of-way.7 These, along with homesteading acts enacted during this time, resulted in every other parcel of land in the area having different ownership, with the remaining public lands only being connected at the corners.8

This led to “range wars” between landowners and homesteaders in the latter half of the 19th century in Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota territories.9 In these conflicts, cattlemen who gained title to land under homesteading laws fenced the borders of their lands near public lands, which essentially fenced in public lands.10

To stop this “evil,” Representative Lewis E. Payson—an Illinois Republican—introduced the Unlawful Inclosures Act (UIA) in 1884.11 Enacted in 1885, the UIA12 prohibits “[a]ll inclosures of any public lands in any State or Territory of the United States” and preventing or obstructing “any person from peaceably entering upon … or … [a person’s] free passage or transit over or through the public lands.”13

According to a House report accompanying the legislation, “millions of acres of public lands [were] held and fenced in by people who have no shadow of a claim to an acre of them … [and] between five and six [million acres] were held by foreign corporations.14

The UIA was supported by members of Congress from Western states, like Representative James Belford from Colorado. During a floor debate of the bill, Representative Belford expressed his ire with cattlemen fencing in thousands of acres of public lands for grazing their cattle, while the homesteading laws of the time only permitted settlers to take up to 320 acres.15

II. Tenth Circuit’s Application of the UIA

In this decision, the Tenth Circuit noted that Wyoming law would consider the act of corner crossing a civil trespass, but because the federal UIA superseded state laws that are inconsistent with this congressional act, the hunters’ actions were otherwise lawful.16

In holding that because Iron Bar cannot “implement a program which has the effect of ‘deny[ing] access to [federal] public lands for lawful purposes,’”17 the hunters’ actions were lawful, the Tenth Circuit mainly relied on two Supreme Court cases.

In Camfield v. United States (1897), the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the UIA for the first time, determining the UIA was a constitutional exercise of Congress’s authority to protect “public lands from nuisances erected upon adjoining property.”18 In its decision, the Court reasoned that if the United States was not permitted to exercise its police power over public lands, the lands would be placed “completely at the mercy of state legislation”19

The Tenth Circuit applied Camfield nearly a century later in Bergen v. Lawrence when it considered whether the federal government could order a Wyoming landowner to remove a fence on his property on the grounds that it enclosed public lands.20

In applying these cases, the Tenth Circuit stated that the UIA “contemplates a limited physical intrusion necessary to abate a nuisance—inclosure of the public lands.”21

Another case interpreting the UIA is Leo Sheep, a U.S. Supreme Court case also arising out of Carbon County, Wyoming.22 In this case, the Court held that the federal government did not have an implied easement to build a road over the Leo Sheep Co.’s land to access public lands in the checkerboard pattern.23 Iron Bar asked the Tenth Circuit to apply this case rather than Camfield and Bergen. The court declined to apply Leo Sheep, reading its holding as narrowly focused on whether the government has an implied easement to construct a road across private property.24 The court further explained that Leo Sheep was inapplicable because “corner-crossing does not rise to the level of ‘an implied easement to build a road across land that was originally granted to the Union Pacific Railroad.’”25
 
Montana is getting into it now. Stock growers association taking it to supreme court, plus a rehash of the Wyoming case. Funny how the ranch in Wyoming says their land will loose value if they can’t keep the public land game for their use.


montanafreepress.org

Montana Stockgrowers Association asks the U.S. Supreme Court to take up corner-crossing issue

A ruling by the country’s highest court could definitively establish whether members of the public can legally access “corner-locked” land in the West.
montanafreepress.org montanafreepress.org
 
in a similar vein..there's a place called Martin's Beach between SF and Santa Cruz with a private road off Hwy #1 to the beach. There's about 50 homes there in which generations have lived, owning their homes and leasing the land from the Deeny family who originally homesteaded the land way back.
Surfers (fun summer break), striper fisherman and smelt netters have been paying an access fee forever to access the beach which is only a coupla hundred yards off the #1. We used to pay 25 cents for access, it eventually worked it's way up to $2 over the decades.
And than in 2008 a silicon valley billionaire originally from India bought the property and locked it off. No more beach access as well as a refusal to renew the leases of the families living there, some who are third generation dwellers in homes they legally own.
The intent of the billionaire is to demolish and clear the houses surrounding the beautiful white sand beach cove, and build Uber expensive rentals for the rich.
A friend of mine who lives there is the lawyer leading the fight to secure lease renewals, currently stalled in Superior Court, as the billionaire's high power legal team fight tooth and nail for full eviction rights with no compensation.
And to date the California Coastal Commission has proved toothless as well in re-opening the beach regardless of long established public right away.
So another battle in which the rich and powerful lay claim by right of wealth to what previously the public had access to. And money will almost always prevail in such cases that make their way to the upper courts, where the judges are appointed by their connections to the wealthy and powerful.
 
Last edited:
Just read that the Supreme Court declined to hear the case and gave no reasoning for why they declined.

"...This means an issue that has roiled the public-land hunting community for years is, at least for now, settled in part of the West. Corner crossing remains legal in Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah — states covered by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals..."

Here is link to full article - Supreme Court Declines to Hear Corner-Crossing Case
 
wanderingrichard said:
So, good thing ?
Click to expand...
"The Supreme Court’s action affirms a principle hunters and anglers have long understood: corner crossing is not a crime,” said Devin O’Dea, Western Policy & Conservation Manager for BHA. “Access to 3.5 million acres of public lands has been secured because four hunters from Missouri took a leap of faith across a corner, and the Wyoming Chapter of BHA stood up in their defense. It’s a victory worth celebrating, and a key domino in the fight for public land access across the West.”

Good thing!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top