And if there's an issue with waypoint 6, was there a boundary marker? If not TFB for the owner.
Posted on 04/28/2023 11:19:33 PM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
The ranch owner suing hunters for trespassing through his airspace to access public land says he would drop his damage claim of some $7.75 million if a judge rules in his favor in a landmark corner-crossing case.
“[P]ursuit of money damages against the individual Defendants in this case detracts from important legal issues,” Eshelman’s new filing states. “[I]f the Court rules in favor of [Eshelman], declares the Defendants’ actions as being actionable trespass, and restrains further trespass, then [Eshelman] will withdraw money damage claims … in the interest of justice and judicial economy.”
The hunters say they never touched Elk Mountain Ranch ground as they stepped from one piece of public land to another in an area of checkerboard-pattern land ownership in Carbon County. The Missourians believe the airspace above such four-corner intersections is shared with the public and that federal laws bar Eshelman from blocking public passage across them, according to court filings.
Eshelman also asserted Wednesday, apparently for the first time, that one of the hunters actually set foot on ranch land. The ranch owner’s legal team used coordinates subpoenaed from the onX company that makes the GPS hunting map app to make the claim.
In a flurry of court filings Thursday, attorneys began arguing how to deal with that new assertion.
Eshelman, a wealthy North Carolina resident, has claimed that if corner crossing were permitted, the resulting public access to public land would devalue his 22,045-acre ranch by some 25% to 30%. That would amount to between $7.75 million and $9.4 million, according to WyoFile calculations made from his civil complaint and associated documents.
(Excerpt) Read more at wyofile.com ...
And if there's an issue with waypoint 6, was there a boundary marker? If not TFB for the owner.
Might be insane. But if a thief gets injured tripping on a kids toy while robbing your house, they sue you for all your worth. So why not? Courts are always doing this kind of crazy stuff. And while we’re at it, someone needs to come up with the next set of criminal indictments for Trump. With all those golf courses, I just bet he is polluting ground water with fertilizer, or wasting water, or something...Cheers
22,000 acres, and blocks access to public land, using it as his exclusive national forest. Welfare ranchers at their finest.
In other words, he wants to effectively seize public land for his private use by denying access to the public.
The guy sounds like a real ahole. He must be a joy to live with.
In our state one can walk on private land holdings with no liability to the land holder.
None.
In this anti and hating culture he is setting himself up for a fall. It is dangerous out there.
What state is that?
So many people, so few bullets.
Just press forward with everything you've got without hesitation, never acknowledge limits or principles, and never admit anything about your tactics -- so that time and again, everybody else wakes up one sunny morning finding they own nothing and you own it all.
A qunitessential American? I think not.
A few hundred people of this guy's means and mindset, and they could make all of rural Wyoming totally inaccessible (while only "owning" half the land).
It's well worth picking apart this guy's legal sophistries, as he's leveraging all the aberrations of modern legal philosophy to play the (local) tyrant here.
Worse, he’s not from Wyoming. He got rich from another area and moved there. He doesn’t support the local culture and people, that’s why migration destroys.
How does this SOB cross at the “four corners” without trespassing on BLM land? I guess he claims BLM land is public so he can cross the four corners, but BLM can’t cross the four corners.
As it should be.
I suppose Waypoint 6 is a trespass, strictly speaking. Even if so, it has absolutely nothing to to with the corner-crossing issue.
Seems to me that the offer to withdraw the lawsuit is telling. The landowner must be losing. But, if he gets the ruling he wants, he can salvage a win.
This is an insanity. A person can feasibly step from inside the corner of one segment of public land to another without ever touching private land. Airspace? Gimme a break. Prove the harm.
Just saying it’s a harm that devalues property is nonsense.
If a landowner forbids access, he is claiming sole ownership of public land. The judge should rule he must either pay taxes on the land or drop his nonsense suit.
I have zero sympathy for the welfare rancher using the trapped public lands as his private national forest. If there was ever a reason for eminent domain, it would be here to clear a public access road to the public land. Maybe just a walkbridge over his land without touching it.
Re: the waypoint alleging one of the hunters set foot on the private land.
To what degree of accuracy is the onX app?
When the waypoint was set, what was the map scale?
I have learned when using onX, I have to enlarge the map as much as possible in order to accurately mark a waypoiint.
I first heard about this from youtube:
He discusses the airspace issue, it’s actually has some precedence, but IMHO it’s total BS here.
****The ranch owner suing hunters for trespassing through his airspace to access public land****
Some large ranch land owners have been doing this for years. By blocking off land access it is as if they just enlarged their ranches by tens of thousands of acres.
One Wyoming rancher became so obnoxious that the local judge declared people fishing could boat on a river as long as they did not touch the bottom. The rancher owned the land, but not the water way passing over.
We had several great swimming holes near here who closed access by local land owners just to keep people out. One even closed a county road to join his property on both sides of the road.
Years ago we had 4 acres and some kids that lived above us on a steep hill would ride their motorbikes up and down my hill. Went & bought some cattle panels to build a fence & my neighbor thought I was overreacting. Told him they were free to use his property.
In Iowa it’s inferred that unless you have permission, no trespassing is allowed but often ignored.
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