I didn't do it!
Posted on 05/05/2008 12:05:06 PM PDT by george76
Richard McLean and Edith Stevens did not fabricate evidence or lie to win their controversial land case against neighbors Don and Susie Kirlin, District Judge James C. Klein ruled today.
Klein’s order essentially upholds his decision last fall to award about 34 percent of one of the Kirlins’ vacant lots to McLean and Stevens after they sued for it using the squatter’s-rights law of “adverse possession.”
The Kirlins had filed paperwork earlier this year alleging that McLean, a former district court judge, and Stevens, an attorney, faked evidence of a dirt path across the Kirlins’ property and lied about using it for more than two decades.
The couple argued that Klein should overturn the original trial decision after providing a package of “new evidence” that included eyewitness testimony and a series of aerial photos of the disputed property.
Klein, however, disagreed.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycamera.com ...
Nice that James C. Klein did not recuse himself.
/s
.
It looks like it reads “Mclean Stevens”.
I’m just going to pretend that I didn’t read this.
Dear God, my blood pressure.
You own a lot or two in some place for investment, but you never check on it because it's just a lot.
Then you find out Homeless Joe has lived there for a year and now some liberal lawyer has sued you to turn over the lot to him?
James C. Klein has a November election ?
Adverse possession as a common law concept is hundreds of years old.
Dang, ya beat me to it.
Yeah...I thought someone was suing Colonel Blake.
So what are these to scumbags going to do.
Do they have some sort of Bivwack or shanty built there, or are they living in a cardboard box?
Going to make for some mighty rough nights with the neighbors
I don’t see how a dirt path can be considered open and notorious evidence of adverse possession pursuant to a claim of right. Do they have any sense of justice in Colorado?
Yup.
Richard McLean and Edith Stevens have po’ed their immediate neighbors, their HOA, the Boulder community...and now the world.
Klein was just helping out his friend ?
There will be more appeals and this has already resulted in one state law change...hopefully more this November.
The article did not mention that McLean and Stevens are big time DemocRAT party activists. I think McLean is a former Boulder County Democrat Party chairman.
Professional courtesy
I don’t think the facts are enough under the law to get him where he wants to go. In order to have adverse possession, you’ve got to be in possession pursuant to a “claim of right.” In other words, it’s not enough merely to have possession. You’ve got to think that you own the property. I would like to know what evidence they had that they thought they owned the property. And did they pay the taxes on it? Because if they thought they owned the property, you’d think they’d pay the taxes on it.
McLean was the Boulder Mayor, a RTD Board member...
He used this land grab trick with the RTD too.
Is there any reason this article should be of general interest to a national conservative politics message board?
Don and Susie Kirlin paid the taxes, the HOA dues, and everything else.
The thieves just liked the views and the ‘free’ open space .
In Colorado “the sense of justice” is that there is just justice for just us justices. If you call in a complaint because a judge trudges on your property, no rational sheriff would touch it with a stick, the prosecuting attorney would be nuts to bring charges against a judge. Get used to it. In Colorado, evidently if the judge wants your land, all he has to do is beat a path down, throw a few seeds there now and then, and then count on one of his buddies to give it to him by right of adverse possesion. Don’t let a judge use your car or tractor, pet your dog, or remain overnight in your house or he may just take them! Don’t let a judge have one of your french fries or he’ll likely claim the whole plate of them. Ever see a poor judge?
Are you kidding?
These two people, Edith Stevens and her husband Richard McLean are a lawyer and a former judge respectively.
They wanted the land so they could create a nice little parking area for their well-to-do Boulder friends when they had their posh dinner parties.
You should read the original story. It'll make your blood boil. The judge in the case is clearly in cahoots with Stevens and McLean to get this land taken from its rightful owners.
They don't need any evidence. They have the judge in their pocket.
I was wondering how many posts that would take!
Folks before everyone goes all goofy, please keep in mind this type of motion is rarely granted.
Generally these motions are more about setting up the prerequisites for going on to an appeal.
If this case is being appealed on an abuse of discretion charge then the case is much harder to win on appeal. Appelate judges are very reluctant to second guess the fact finding of the trial judges.
Just FYI to keep focused on the inevitable appeal vs knee jerk reactions.
The story is so absurd, so unfair, so ludicrous, I had a difficult time believing that it could actually happen - even in Boulder.
It’s about a couple named Don and Susie Kirlin. They moved to the city in 1980. A few years later, the Kirlins purchased a plot of land near their residence, hoping to someday build a “dream home.”
“We took advantage of the market in the early ‘80s,” says Susie Kirlin, almost apologetic for making a smart investment.
Children interfered slightly with the master plan - three of them in the next few years - postponing any development of the property.
As the children began to make their own way in life, the couple decided it was time to finally develop the property in late 2006.
By then, it was too late.
Despite owning the land, despite living only 200 yards from the property, despite hiking past it every week with their three dogs, despite spraying for weeds and fixing fences, despite paying homeowner association dues and property taxes each year, someone else had taken a shine to it. Someone powerful.
Former Boulder District Judge, Boulder Mayor, RTD board member - among other elected positions - Richard McLean and his wife, attorney Edith Stevens, used an arcane common law called “adverse possession” to claim the land for their own.
All McLean needed was to develop an
“attachment” to it.
Undoubtedly, his city connections couldn’t have hurt, either.
In the court papers, McLean and his family admit to regularly trespassing on the Kirlins’ property.
They created paths. They said they put on a political fundraiser and parties on it (though not a single photograph of these events surfaced in court documents).
This habit of trespassing developed into an affection.
If we take McLean at his word, he should have been treated appropriately: like a common criminal. Instead, the former judge demanded a chunk of the land for himself - and implausibly he got it.
How did the Kirlins learn this travesty was afoot? Susie Kirlin was warned about it at a Boulder High School football game. Be cautious, her neighbor warned, someone has designs on your property.
“I laughed when I first heard it. I really didn’t know that anyone had an emotional attachment to our land,” Kirlin tells me. “I was quite surprised. I was even more surprised that someone could claim our land. But my neighbor told me this was a well- connected person and I should take it seriously.”
When the couple began building a fence on the land - which is within Boulder city limits, not out in the wilderness - McLean was able, according to the Kirlins, to obtain a restraining order in an exceptionally speedy 2 1/2 hours.
Boulder District Judge Morris Sandstead, who served with McLean, issued the restraining order quite swiftly.
Serendipity, I guess.
All of this adds up to District Judge James Klein ordering the Kirlins to sign over about 34 percent of their 4,750-square-foot lot to McLean and his wife last month.
“Now the lot is just about worthless,” explains Don Kirlin. “We estimate the land was worth about $800,000 to a million dollars. Now, we can’t build anything on it.”
Surely, that was the goal.
To add insult, the case, which the Kirlins are appealing, has cost the family over $100,000 in legal fees.
Property rights, one of the foundational ideas of this nation, mean less and less these days. Abusive eminent domain cases are popping up all over the county. This, a bit different, is probably one of the most absurd cases I’ve heard.
Boulder has a reputation of being a, um, quirky town. Some of this is indisputably deserved. Judging from the angry reaction up there, however, most citizens are outraged. And that is certainly heartening.
Attempts to reach McLean were unsuccessful. His lawyer declined comment. McLean’s legacy, we can only hope, is sullied for good.
But what lesson can we all learn from this episode? Easy. If you fancy some undeveloped property - and have no scruples - keep walking on it until you create a path.
Have a party.
Eventually, the land can be yours.
From The Denver Post
http://www.denverpost.com/harsanyi/ci_7501264
Not needed under traditional common law, but nowadays the details vary from state to state. Common law rule was along the lines of “open and notorious” use. The concept is more often invoked to establishment a right to an easement, than to take over ownership of property, but it applies to property ownership as well. For easements, the deal is that if you let somebody, for example, walk or drive across your land as a convenient way of accessing their own property continuously for 7+ years, an easement is created which you can’t take back. This is why many commercial properties which allow public through-traffic will cut it off at least one day a year (and document the fact that they did so).
Not one year. Anywhere from seven to ten, depending on the State. Homeless Joe must meet some other conditions, but I don't want to relive that class.
gotcha, thanks
I just assumed that one had to actually be living on or making daily used of someones property in order to assert such a claim. I remeber reading a story of a guy who let his girlfriends monther live rent free in one of his rental properties. She sued him and won under the adverse possession since he didn’t charge her rent, not even a dollar.
This case is clearly a case of theft outright and true to form for a DemocRAT.
I think I read on an earlier thread that the real landowners were paying the property taxes.
No.
It's understandable that you would think that, but it's not right.
The terms "adverse" and "hostile," in adverse possession law, mean that the persons using the property adversely are doing so with intent hostile to that of the paper title holder.
In fact, if they use the land in a mistaken belief that it belongs to them, that is a disqualification to any claim of adverse possession they might make.
That is how I understand the law, anyway. (I'm not a lawyer; but as I've posted on previous threads, I studied the doctrine years ago when I had to fight my own adverse possession case pro se.)
I had a chance to read the actual submittal the Kirlins made to show the judge the McLean-Steves fabricated evidence. It was incredibly strong. It showed numerous aerial photos and sworn testimony from neighbors that the path did not exist until recently when Edith Stevens created it. There was even testimony from the surveyor who surveyed the lot a few years ago, and how he was pressured by Judge McLean and his boss at the surveying company to show a path where there was not a path.
The evidence was clear that the claim of a path was fabricated, and that the McLean Stevens started laying the groundwork for the legal battle a few years ago to prevent the Kirlins from selling the lot or building on it and thus blocking the McLean Stevens view.
This will not end here.
Boulder District Judge Morris Sandstead, who served with McLean, issued the restraining order quite swiftly.
Serendipity, I guess.
There was even testimony from the surveyor who surveyed the lot a few years ago, and how he was pressured by Judge McLean and his boss at the surveying company to show a path where there was not a path.
Even liberals in Boulder are mad.
Judge's decision, McClean/Stevens vs. Kirlin (pdf)
The judge explains, briefly, the background of the doctrine of adverse possession, and the conditions that are necessary to prove a claim.
The judge also cites the evidence, in great detail, as presented to the court.
It's an easy read, not heavy slogging like many legal documents. If anyone, after reading the entire document, can find legal mistakes in the decision, please list them point by point.
Now you want something with some lineage, I think that one was common in Hammurabi's time ~ which is why he authorized a death penalty for it.
Even worse was King Joab. He did the stealing himself. Didn't even wait for a corrupt judge.
This one should go to a higher court.
This is Colorado. I’m guessing their adverse possession law is very much like those in the Midwest rather than the West. Else, there’d been references to water rights in the claim.
We all must be reminded from time to time that you can never, ever trust a Leftwingtard even one second.
If you own a parcel of land and go there to check things out once a week or so that's also a lot, maybe enough.
If someone wants to argue that your piece of land is actually two plots and you haven't been to the back in a while, that smells fishy.
"Twenty-five years" is a compelling figure, but I'm still not convinced.
Thanks for the update. Of course, if he overturned his own ruling he would look like the flaming idiot he is. Open and notorious corruption, I call it!
This is typical “Black Collar Crime.”
Yes, deeply so. Property rights, and their protection are one of conservatives primary issues. This is also of interest due to the Black Collar Crime aspect.
Fraud and corruption go back even further.
I still haven't heard anyone give me an answer regarding my observation that the "18-year-old path" bends around a tree that appears less than 18 years old.
But of course, the evidence was strongly against McLean/Stevens and it didn't matter--this was decided in contradiction to the evidence.
He had the opportunity to look at the rather clear evidence that had not been available earlier, and overturn his own ruling—if he were honest. Now, he shows he’s not.
The judge’s ruling pointed out errors in the appeal that was filed, showing a 2003 photograph that had the path but was mislabeled, etc. This gave the judge cover for saying that the Kirlins were trying to mislead the court.
I think the Kirlins had a poor attorney and didn’t present a very good case. When I looked at their filings before, they were not very well done. I wish I could have helped out, but I’m across the country. :-(
I am a lawyer. States have different requirements. I’m not sure what it is in CO, but you’ve got to have a “claim of right.” What that means is different in each state.
Are you a land-use lawyer?
As for adverse possession laws differing in each state, I was actually struck by how similar each state's laws were when I researched this some years ago.
The main difference in state laws is how much time is required for a claim. IIRC in some states it's as little as 5 yrs, in some it's 10 or 15, and in my state it was 25 yrs.
Only Louisiana was significantly different from other states, IIRC. (Louisiana law, being based on Napoleonic Code rather than Anglo-Saxon common law, doesn't recognize the doctrine of adverse possession.)
In any case, what I was refuting was your statement that claimants must believe the property belonged to them, in order to make a valid claim of adverse possession.
That is completely the opposite of the truth, to my knowledge --and it would not make sense in the context of adverse possession doctrine.
If you can find a state where what you claimed is true, then please post it here.
No. The Kirlins paid taxes on the land.
I know this seems counter-intuitive, but the fact that McLean/Stevens did not pay taxes on the land is not a bar to their claim of adverse possession. It actually enhances their claim, under the law.
If someone wants to argue that your piece of land is actually two plots and you haven't been to the back in a while, that smells fishy.
The Kirlins' property IS two adjacent lots. That was never in dispute.
Keep in mind that the strip of land that McClean/Stevens acquired by adverse possession is a 10-foot wide strip -- NOT the entire lot. The Kirlins still own one entire lot (the one on which they claimed they intended to build). They also still own most of their other lot, the one which is immediately adjacent to McLean/Stevesn.
Re my post 40, I meant to post “Anglo-American common law” (not “Anglo-Saxon”).
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