[Wayne] Hage didn’t get his money. His legal theories sucked. However, the BLM has been ordered to give his heirs a grazing permit and access to water.
In your numerous discussions of the Wayne Hage case, you did The Progressive Thing - you left out stuff that you didn't want the other reader knowing.
Most people call it "lying by omission". It's one of the reasons I became a dedicated enemy of politicians in general, and Democrats in particular.
I'm sorry to see that a supposed conservative & Christian doesn’t want to tell the truth, but prefers to lie by omission to carry his point. Which makes it not a point, at all. And now, the rest of the Wayne Hage story:
Federal Judge Accuses Federal Land Managers of Attempting to Bankrupt Ranch
http://watchdogwire.com/nevada/2013/06/14/federal-judge-accuses-federal-land-managers-of-attempting-to-bankrupt-ranch/
June 14, 2013
In a scathing 104-page opinion a Nevada federal judge lambasted the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service for behavior that “shocks the conscience” of the court, accusing federal officials of attempting to bankrupt the Hage family ranch by entering into “a literal, intentional conspiracy to deprive the Hages not only of their permits but also of their vested water rights.”...
...This past fall, Judge Jones held a three-day hearing at the end of the trial of this case and found Tonopah Bureau of Land Management area manager Tom Seley and Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest Service ranger Steve Williams in contempt for witness intimidation and attempts to circumvent the jurisdiction of the court. The judge said there was “intent to deprive this court of jurisdiction by intimidation of witnesses and threats against witnesses.”
Jones ordered from the bench, “Mr. Seley can no longer be an administrator in this BLM district. I don’t trust him to be unbiased. Nor can he supervise anybody in this district.”
He said the two tried to destroy the ranch financially by filing claims against the Hages’ water rights and sending solicitations for 10-year grazing permits on a grazing allotment held by the Hages.
Ten months later, the online office directories of both agencies list both men as still holding down the same jobs...
Hage Forage Right Trial Ends With BLM and U.S. Forest Service Employees Found in Contempt
http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/239864/86d36d9a87/569000697/9e9d8d7a64/
RENO, NV—Friday, August 31, a weeklong show-cause hearing ended with Chief Federal District Court Judge Robert C. Jones finding Tonopah Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manager Tom Seley and Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest Service ranger (USFS) Steve Williams in contempt of court. The contempt, including witness intimidation, occurred during the pendency of the five-year-old forage right case, U.S. v. Estate of E. Wayne Hage and Wayne N. Hage.
Seley was specifically found having intent to destroy the Hages’ property and business interests. “Mr. Seley can no longer be an administrator in this BLM district. I don’t trust him to be unbiased. Nor can he supervise anybody in this district,” the judge stated in his order from the bench.
The contempt finding was the result of the USFS and BLM having filed suit against Wayne N. Hage and the Estate of E. Wayne Hage in 2007 but then also seeking alternative remedies while the case was pending in derogation of the court’s jurisdiction.
“The problem is Mr. Seley especially, and to a lesser extent, Mr. Williams...had to kill the business of Mr. Hage. They had to stop him in any way possible,” the judge noted as the motive for their contemptuous actions. “My problem was that you were seeking remedy outside this court,” he added.
The court noted, “You got a random draw of a judge. You submitted to this civil process.” Then, Seley and Williams pursued their own remedies by trying to extort money out of third-party ranchers who had leased cattle to Wayne N. Hage. They issued trespass notices, demands for payments, their own judgments, and in one instance coerced a $15,000 settlement. All of this was done during the time the court had jurisdiction over these issues.
Counts against Seley and Williams included filing on top of the Hages’ vested and certificated stockwater rights with intent of converting those rights to a new permittee; sending 75 solicitations for 10-year grazing permits in the Ralston allotment aiming to destroy the Hages’ grazing preferences and water rights; issuing temporary permits to third parties, in particular Gary Snow of Fallon, Nev., with the knowledge that Snow’s cattle would drink the waters belonging to the Hage family; and, finally, the assessment of fines, penalties and judgments on third parties whose cattle were under the legal possession of Wayne N. Hage.
Judge Jones remarked about the July 26 Federal Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling in the parallel constitutional Fifth Amendment takings case, U.S. v. Hage. The court expressly said the Hages have “an access right” to their waters. He also noted that the court did not overturn any of the Hages’ property rights that the Court of Claims found the Hages to own. Also, the takings that were overturned were overturned on the basis that the claims were not ripe, not because the government was acting correctly.
The hearing began Monday, August 27, with a cadre of agency heads from Washington, D.C., regional and state offices turning up in Reno to defend their policies and employees in court. After intense questioning by the court, Judge Jones made witness credibility findings in which USFS Region 4 Director Harv Forsgren was found lying to the court, and Nevada head of the USFS, Jeanne Higgins, was not entirely truthful. After those findings, several other named witnesses did not testify.
In his bench ruling Friday night, Judge Jones stated: “The most persuasive testimony of anybody was Mr. Forsgren. I asked him has there been a decline in AUMs [animal unit months/livestock numbers] in the West. Then I asked him has there been a decline in the region, or this district. He said he doesn’t know. He was prevaricating. His answer speaks volumes about his intent and his directives to Mr. Williams.” The court noted that anybody who is school age or older knows “the history of the Forest Service in seeking reductions in AUMs and even an elimination of cattle grazing during the last four decades. Not so much with the BLM—they have learned that in the last two decades.”
In his findings of witness intimidation, Judge Jones noted: “Their threats were not idle. They threatened one witness’s father’s [grazing] allotment.” The judge referenced testimony wherein Steve Williams delivered trespass notices accompanied by an armed employee. In one instance the armed man snuck up behind one of the witnesses with his hands ready to draw his guns. “Packing a gun shows intent,” the court noted.
In explaining the findings to Seley and Williams, the court found there was “intent to deprive this court of jurisdiction by intimidation of witnesses and threats against witnesses.” He added, “Where you crossed the line is you took civil action yourself in order to kill the business of Hage.”
Seley and Williams were held personally liable for damages totaling over $33,000 should the BLM and USFS fail to fund the losses to Hage and third parties. In addition, Judge Jones imposed an injunction wherein the BLM and USFS are prevented from interfering with third-party leasing relationships when the livestock are in the clear operational control of Wayne N. Hage. The judge ordered Hage to reapply for a grazing permit and ordered the federal government to immediately issue permits to the Hages for the winter grazing season on the Ralston allotment.
The judge said he had already written 100 pages of his final decision from the main trial ending June 6. He indicated his published decision should be forthcoming in early October. Wayne N. Hage represented himself, pro se, and Mark Pollot, a Boise, Idaho, attorney, represented the Estate.
==========================
I'm not sure why a supposed "conservative" would be defending this sort of naked government thuggery, as you did ("Hage didn’t get his money. His legal theories sucked"), but it's something I and many others on this site would never do.
Take the King's Shilling, and keep attacking Bundy and Hage.
Just don't try to pawn your swill off on me.
I did not leave it out. I have mentioned it in numerous posts. For example:
Nevada Showdown: All Hat, No Cattle (Hurl Alert applicable?)
Tuesday, April 15, 2014 8:56:12 AM · 39 of 115
Mr Rogers to wideawake
A fellow named Hage has fought things in court for as long as Bundy. The court ruled:
“In the present case, the Government’s actions over the past two decades shocks the conscience of the Court, and the burden on the Government of taking a few minutes to realize that the reference to the UCC on the Estate’s application was nonsensical and would not affect the terms of the permit was minuscule compared to the private interest affected. The risk of erroneous deprivation is great in such a case, because unless the Government analyzes such a note in the margin, it cannot know if the note would affect the terms of the permit such that the acceptance is in fact a counteroffer.
The Government revoked E. Wayne Hage’s grazing permit, despite his signature on a renewal application form, because he had added a reference to the UCC to his signature indicating that he was not waiving any rights thereby. Based upon E. Wayne Hage’s declaration that he refused to waive his rights—a declaration that did not purport to change the substance of the grazing permit renewal for which he was applying, and which had no plausible legal effect other than to superfluously assert non-waiver of rights—the Government denied him a renewal grazing permit based upon its frankly nonsensical position that such an assertion of rights meant that the application had not been properly completed....
...The Government has sufficiently proved an ongoing trespass to warrant a permanent injunction, although not so broad an injunction as the Government desires. Defendants are also entitled to an injunction, as outlined, infra. There is a great probability that the Government will continue to cite Defendants and potentially impound Defendants’ cattle in the future in derogation of their water rights and those statutory privileges of which the Government has arbitrarily and vindictively stripped them. There is also a probability that Defendants will continue to permit their cattle to graze in excess of the incidental grazing permitted during stock watering that cannot reasonably be prevented. The Court will therefore enjoin all parties in certain respects and will require Hage to apply for a permit and the Government to grant it...
...THE COURT FURTHER FINDS that the denial of E. Wayne [*192] Hage’s renewal grazing application for the years 1993—2003 was an abuse of discretion, as well as a violation of due process, as the only reason given for the denial was that the applicant noted near his signature that he did not thereby relinquish certain unidentified rights under the UCC, a superfluous condition that cannot possibly have affected the terms of the permit. It is this violation that has led to all of the allegedly un-permitted grazing to date and the BLM’s refusal to offer any permit to Hage himself.
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Government is enjoined from unreasonably interfering with the ability of Defendants Wayne N. Hage and the Estate of E. Wayne Hage to bring cattle to those water sources and attendant ditches in which these Defendants have vested rights to water their cattle as identified herein. The Government may impose reasonable regulations upon access to these water sources, such as specifying which routes shall be used for ingress and egress, if it is necessary to impose such restrictions for legitimate purposes. Reasonable regulations are those that neither prohibit access to the water nor restrict access to the water in a way that unreasonably burdens the ability to access and use the water.”
A more productive course of action might be for the state of Nevada to sue the BLM, arguing the BLM is violating public law by trying to eliminate grazing on public land in violation of federal law.
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And from post 181, this thread:
“The contract ALWAYS allowed the government to revise it at will. The contract never specified XXXX AMU forever. Since the government had the right to change it at will, it had less market value than a fixed contract on private land. It is possible to sue the BLM successfully for arbitrary and capricious changes to an allotment - Hage did, and won.”
This:
Beck Warns Americans Against Falling in With ‘Right’s Version of Occupy Wall Street’ (Bundy)
Tuesday, April 15, 2014 8:39:41 AM · 103 of 201
Mr Rogers to Lou Budvis
“Just when did he come to this brilliant legal conclusion that the land really belonged to Nevada?”
Probably around 1990-1993. There were folks going around telling folks that. One of them, Hage - a guy with more smarts than Bundy IMHO - lost his legal arguments in court last year (his estate, since he died), but the court also said the behavior of the BLM “shocks the conscience of the court”. It pointed out that the BLM went looking for a fight and created a problem where there did not need to be one.
Here:
Bundy Boots the BLM – Is This a Significant Moment?
Monday, April 14, 2014 7:58:58 AM · 33 of 70
Mr Rogers to agere_contra
The current status of the Hage case can be found here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/144609491/United-States-v-Estate-of-Hage-No-2-07-cv-01154-RCJ-VCF-Findings-of-Fact-Conclusions-of-Law-and-Injunction-D-Nev-May-24-2013
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Hage’s legal theory that the BLM & USFS could not administer land because the feds cannot own it sucks. Sorry, but that is the truth and the courts have consistently applied the law as it has stood from the 1800s - and rejected Hage’s legal theory about the feds owning land.
The court DID, however, also attack the feds for creating a fight where none was needed - as I have pointed out.
Sorry to see you choose to lie again.