Corner crossing

[CarlMega]

Eat the rich [landowners].

I wonder how many of these ppl you'd have to eat before others backed off? Would it be like licking a tootsie pop? one, two, three.

I'm for it, a brief amount of cannibalism for the greater good. Sort of has me rethinking the early explorers and native peoples dynamic.

[This End Up]

Eat the rich [landowners].

The hunters may also be rich. That area of wyo attracts a lot of affluent hunters every fall. They fly their private jets to the airport in Saratoga Wy.

[Phall]

there's a few podcasts about this, and one with the defendants, on the meateater network, they most definitely are not wealthy, lots of DIY hunters are driving west for 1-2 weeks in the fall to hunt big game.

[AdironRider]

Non resident tags in Wyoming are not cheap. These guys spent a couple gs just on tags. Not to say they are loaded but these guys are doing annually what most regular hunters would consider the trip of a lifetime.

On x basically markets their app specifically to get people into hard to get to areas exactly like this. They are probably very invested in seeing this case pan out and rich landowners are going to do what rich land owners do. There seem to be some large groups backing either side on the issue using this case to prove something larger. Will be interesting to see where it goes from here. (I’m pulling for the hunters myself)

[Whiteroom_Guardian]

The real wealthy guys are getting guides and shooting Elk on big ranches. The dudes who drive their trucks out and do their e-scouting and walk public for a couple weeks are generally just hard working dudes who save up all year for their annual trip.

[zion zig zag]

Non resident tags in Wyoming are not cheap. These guys spent a couple gs just on tags.

Collectively. Elk tags are about $700.

[zion zig zag]

https://www.onxmaps.com/onx-access-i...rossing-report


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[Squirreljam]

Hunters mostly win on summary judgement - all corner crossing tresspassing claims gone, only thing left is the GPS waypoint that will go to trial but judge already said any damages arising would be nominal, not the 7 mil the guy claimed because of devaluation of land.

if you've got access to pacer, here's the order: CM/ECF-LIVE-District of Wyoming (uscourts.gov) I can't find an outside copy.

News report is here but frustratingly leaves a lot out - Judge rules Missouri hunters didn't trespass when "corner-crossing" (news-leader.com)

[CarlMega]

Good news. Thanks for the update.

[gravitylover]

It's about time.

[Phall]

The waypoint argument is asinine. I can drop a waypoint on private in the same spot right now from home. And, if they were super zoomed out on onX and clicked mark my location that point could land on the private


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[riser4]

,The waypoint??? They're going with that??? The fucking waypoint??? In digital space, not meat space??? Losing faith in humanity again. An asteroid can't come quick enough.

[evdog]

Let's all set up onX accounts and drop waypoints on this guy's land. Fill'er up!

[Tele'ndaboat]

The checker boarding sucks. Fuck private landowners that think it makes it their land.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Cool.
Corner crossing is explicitly illegal in MT? Da fuck?

[RootSkier]

Cool.
Corner crossing is explicitly illegal in MT? Da fuck?

I don't think so. Plenty of landowners think so, but there is no real law on it here, as far as I know.

And I say this recognizing I was wrong about the way the ruling in WY would go. I can definitely see that case going all the way to SCOTUS.

[evasive_MT]

IIRC there was a failed bill several sessions ago to make it explicitly legal. But that’s just a vague memory and could be mistaken.

[RootSkier]

Correct. There have been failed bills to make it expressly legal and failed bills to make it expressly illegal over the past few sessions. I am actually surprised it has never been litigated in Montana, where the Supreme Court is extremely pro public access in a very wide variety of contexts, and has been for a long time (as a consequence of facing re-election, in large part), and where there are a metric fuckton of otherwise inaccessible sections.

[oldnew_guy]

Other than the politics, couldn't a state just condemn a 10' x 10' square at the corner of every corner where this comes into play, pay for the taking and negate the entire need to go to SCOTUS?

[RootSkier]

Other than the politics, couldn't a state just condemn a 10' x 10' square at the corner of every corner where this comes into play, pay for the taking and negate the entire need to go to SCOTUS?

Yes, in fact it doesn't even need to be anywhere close to that big. I have actually been urging some public access groups to do this in MT for years via local governments. Ironically, the Legislature just this session prohibited counties from exercising eminent domain powers for purely recreational access purposes, because the Legislature is filled with fucking scumbags. But here was my theory before that happened, with references to Montana statutes:

I did some (very rough) math and it seems like condemning two adjacent corners approximately 2.5' wide (to make a 5'-wide path) would only require approximately ~8 square feet from each section. So you are only talking about condemning about 16 square feet for each corner. An acre is 43560 square feet so this is only .04% of an acre for each trail segment. I can't even do the math for a percentage of a section because it is almost incalculably small.

The condemnation statutes contemplate that in addition to fair market value of the property itself, the condemnation value includes the "basis of depreciation in the current fair market value of property not actually taken but injuriously affected." 70-30-302(1). This means--I think--that landowners could argue that they have a loss of value due to not being able to exclude people from adjoining public property. The interesting legal issue is that I would bet just about anything that the Montana Supreme Court would not allow a court to consider arguments that a private landowner is injured by the mere fact that the public now has access to land it already owns, or that the landowner "lost" anything by now having to deal with the public using its own land.

not legal advice blah fucking blah

[oldnew_guy]

Yes, in fact it doesn't even need to be anywhere close to that big. I have actually been urging some public access groups to do this in MT for years via local governments. Ironically, the Legislature just this session prohibited counties from exercising eminent domain powers for purely recreational access purposes, because the Legislature is filled with fucking scumbags. But here was my theory before that happened, with references to Montana statutes:

I did some (very rough) math and it seems like condemning two adjacent corners approximately 2.5' wide (to make a 5'-wide path) would only require approximately ~8 square feet from each section. So you are only talking about condemning about 16 square feet for each corner. An acre is 43560 square feet so this is only .04% of an acre for each trail segment. I can't even do the math for a percentage of a section because it is almost incalculably small.

The condemnation statutes contemplate that in addition to fair market value of the property itself, the condemnation value includes the "basis of depreciation in the current fair market value of property not actually taken but injuriously affected." 70-30-302(1). This means--I think--that landowners could argue that they have a loss of value due to not being able to exclude people from adjoining public property. The interesting legal issue is that I would bet just about anything that the Montana Supreme Court would not allow a court to consider arguments that a private landowner is injured by the mere fact that the public now has access to land it already owns, or that the landowner "lost" anything by now having to deal with the public using its own land.

not legal advice blah fucking blah

Seems alot smarter and more cost effective than paying state lawyers to argue all the way to SCOTUS.

Is there a rationale for why they aren't going this route? I guess they have to go through the whole condemnation process, which at the local level can be an issue for some city/county governments depending on their local politics and susceptibility to losing the next election.

I can't imagine that the FLMA's are to interested either, but it also seems like an easy fix to the issue for them compared to the endless litigation route.

[total_immortal]

This article goes into a bit more detail than the other one...

https://montanafreepress.org/2023/05...ssing-hunters/

[RootSkier]

Probably because the state and local gov'ts in WY are more interested in appeasing large landowners than out-of-state hunters?

[oldnew_guy]

Probably because the state and local gov'ts in WY are more interested in appeasing large landowners than out-of-state hunters?

Sorry, I meant the public access groups. Are they pushing for the condemnation approach or the litigation approach that is on going?

[zion zig zag]

Probably because the state and local gov'ts in WY are more interested in appeasing large landowners than non-guided, public land, out-of-state hunters?

FIFY. The hunting guide lobby has deep connections it would seem.