Posted on 03/28/2023 12:21:24 PM PDT by Navy Patriot
The three liberal justices on the Supreme Court joined together with the appointees of former President Donald Trump in deciding in favor of Montana property owners fighting a federal land grab.
The Washington Examiner reported liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson united with Trump appointed Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh in the majority opinion.
Justice Clarence Thomas, who was appointed by former President George H.W. Bush, along with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, two appointees of former President George W. Bush, voted in the minority.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
I don’t want people on my property, either.
In 2006, however, the Forest Service posted a sign along the road—known as Robbins Gulch Road—advertising the road as public access to the National Forest. This, despite the fact that there’s a wider, better-maintained road to the same part of the forest just a few miles from Wil and Jane’s property. Nevertheless, the Forest Service allowed the public to started using the road. As public use increased, so did serious traffic hazards and speeding, as well as intrusive and disrespectful activity such as fire threats, trespassing, noise, verbal abuse, and illegal hunting. Wil’s cat was shot by such a trespasser (the cat recovered).
The broader problem is even worse. When Wil questioned the Forest Service, agents assured him that his original easement was intact, and that everything would be worked out later in a new Travel Management Plan. Eight years of bureaucracy later, the Forest Service finalized the road’s status as open to the public.
By deciding decades after the fact that the easement should be for public access, the Forest Service is trying to gain a better easement than it agreed to—at the expense of Wil and Jane’s private property rights. But when they tried to sue, a federal court took the government’s word that the statute of limitations had expired. The neighbors disputed the government’s claim that they were too late to sue, but the court wouldn’t hear that testimony or consider the merits of the case.
In March 2023, the Supreme Court sided with Wil and Jane, affirming that the government cannot manipulate procedural rules to prevent property owners from defending their constitutional rights. Wil and Jane can now argue their case in court.
https://pacificlegal.org/case/wilkins-v-united-states-of-america/
Isn’t a corner, or an inch, of private land private land?
I agree there are two sides to the issue. My wife and I were looking at a parcel of land not far in another state supposedly "water front" but was next to a public access road. Turned out that the county had taken advantage of the sale of an access road on the south side of the property to grab -all- of the lot within 20ft of the lake. The current owner had sued to get it back but lost.
Find it at the end here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1164_7li8.pdf
I believe that you are correct, the Feds have misbehaved in this particular case about this particular road.
Ketanji Brown Jackson
I get the feeling sometimes that she was willing to say anything to get on the Court and could go centrist on the Dems.
However that does not explain why the ruling was not unanimous and whom dissented.
I have no idea what she will do or why.
An easement.
I snipped the head count out because the OP already covered it and I posted the link to the full decision with the dissent at the end, but didn’t read it yet because interruptions.
In England they take ‘public right of way’ very seriously.
I believe Rockefeller Center closes off access one day year, to keep a public right of way from being established.
If Alito and Thomas both voted no I have to wonder about this.
My thoughts exactly
Alito and Thomas against and the liberals for?
gives me pause too.
I’m a bit dense but has anyone a link to the decision?
In holding that §2409a(g) is not jurisdictional, the majority commits two critical errors. First, it applies the same interpretive approach to a condition on a waiver of sovereign immunity that it would apply to any run-of-the-mill procedural rule. Second, by reading the Court’s prior Quiet Title Act precedents in this way, the Court disregards their express recognition of the jurisdictional character of the Act’s time bar. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent. (J. Thomas with Roberts and Alito joining)
It goes on about prior decisions holding the time bar is jurisdictional, so basically sticking to Stare Decisis.
Which is sad, considering they were happy to declare Roe wrongly decided, but it’s okay for the USFS to screw people over by bureaucratic delay.
Because if Wilkins had sued before the Travel Management Plan was finalized, they would have claimed that no harm had been done or rights violated (yet). Then they finalize the plan when the clock runs out. So does the clock start ticking when they indicated their intention or when they finalize it?
Post 25
The problem for the property owner was that the agreement in 1911 was vaguely worded, and the creek used as boundary as well as the lakeshore might have shifted some in the interim.
Thank You.
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