by I learned a new term this week. It is “corner-crossing hunters”. It does not involve hunters waiting for the light to change so they can cross the street when the light changes. Rather, it seems to be a distinctly Western US issue whereby hunters cross from one piece of public land to another piece of public land at the adjoining corners.
Look at the checkerboard pictured below. Now imagine all the red spaces are public land and all the black spaces are private land. As a historical result of how the United States granted lands out West to the railroads to encourage their development of the trans-continental railroads, much of the land ownership looks exactly like this. It is not a trivial amount of land as the government granted property in a 40 mile wide swath along the railroad. The result is that if you wish to avoid trespassing on private land you must do so at the corners. While this seems simple to me as a born and bred Easterner, things are never as they seem.
The issue of corner-crossing was brought to a head as a result of a lawsuit seeking $7 million in damages brought by Iron Bar Holdings LLC (aka Elk Mountain Ranch) against four hunters from Missouri. The hunters had hunted public land in 2020 and 2021 adjoining the Carbon County, Wyoming ranch. They had crossed at the corners. The owner of the ranch had argued the hunters trespassed by invading the airspace above his property. He filed complaints for criminal trespass against the hunters with the Wyoming Department of Game and Fish as well as the local sheriff. After their 2021 hunt, the local prosecutor did bring charges but all four hunters were acquitted in a jury trial of criminal trespass.
In 2022, the rancher filed a civil complaint in Wyoming state court that was moved to Federal court. The rancher was seeking as noted above $7 million in damages. Thanks to a fundraising campaign by Wyoming Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, the four hunters – Zach Smith, Bradley Cape, Phillip Yeomans, and John Slowensky – were represented in court. The group also filed an amicus brief with the court.
On May 26th, Chief US District Court Judge Scott Skavdahl granted the motion to dismiss filed by the defendants for most of the claims against them. All that remained was whether or not a marked waypoint on the OnX hunting app indicated one of the hunters had trespassed. That was later dismissed as the plaintiff withdrew its last remaining claim.
From WyoFile.com:
Skavdahl observed that with respect to the corner crossing issue “[t]here is no evidence the hunters made physical contact with [Eshelman’s] private land or caused any damage to plaintiff’s private property,” either in 2020 or 2021. The judge also agreed with Eshelman that he generally owns the airspace above his property and is entitled to use it.
But even property rights come with limitations and restrictions, Skavdahl wrote.
“History, federal case law, federal statutory law, and recent Wyoming legislation demonstrate corner crossing in the manner done by Defendants in this case is just such a restriction on Plaintiff’s property rights,” he wrote. “[D]efendants, ‘in common with other persons [have] the right to the benefit of the public domain,’ which necessarily requires some limitation on the adjoining private landowner’s right of exclusion within the checkerboard pattern of land ownership.”
One of the prevailing cases that assisted Judge Skavdahl in his ruling dated back to 1914 and involved a sheepherder moving his sheep from one piece of public land to another. Obviously, a flock of sheep take up more of the “airspace” above private property than does a hunter jumping or swing across at the corner. That ruling recognized the “exceptional conditions” created by the checkerboard of land ownership and that provision must be made to allow one to cross from one piece of public land to another. The judge went back even further to the Unlawful Inclosures Act of 1885 and found the rancher blocking one corner using steel posts and locked chains violated that act (see photo below).
It should be noted that the hunters went over and beyond in 2021 to avoid trespass. In the photo below taken from a court exhibit, the hunters used a self-made steel ladder to enable them to step across at the corners. This was especially true of the one corner that the rancher had created an impediment.
I strongly believe in private property rights. However, in this case I do think that Judge Skavdahl got it right considering the checkerboard nature of many of these public landholdings.
H/T Ben Cassidy at SCI