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Judge rules Wyoming corner crossers did not trespass
- Kon-Peki 3y agoExcellent outcome. Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33860346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33860346
- dang 3y agoThanks! Macroexpanded: 6M Acres of Public Land in the US West Are Corner-Locked - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34143365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34143365 - Dec 2022 (183 comments) The Wyoming corner crossing case - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33860346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33860346 - Dec 2022 (74 comments) A navigation app that illuminates public land within privately held property - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33753467 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33753467 - Nov 2022 (181 comments)
- kjs3 3y agoUS$7.75 million in damages for (rereads it) stepping on someones property? That's some next-level douchebaggery right there. It's a shame the lawyers involved won't get sanctioned for not telling their PoS client "that's not going to go over well"[1]. [1] "Any damages Eshelman would claim for that alleged transgression would be limited to “nominal damages” and not the $7.75 million Eshelman had claimed in lost ranch value, the judge wrote."
- giaour 3y ago> US$7.75 million in damages for (rereads it) stepping on someones property? Not even stepping on private property, just crossing through its airspace.
- dragonwriter 3y agoNo, while the airspace and touching a pole allegations were just dismissed, there was also—and still is—a “trespassing by foot elsewhere on the property” allegation that is still live, and it is that allegation to which the comment about “nominal damages” applies. So the original $7.75 million claim wasn’t just for corner crossing.
- kjs3 3y agoOh, well that makes it way more reasonable. /s :-) I guess I shouldn't be surprised. My wife does some work on the medical side of the Personal Injury industry and there's always some comedy about PI lawyers trying to juice the moral equivalent of a stubbed toe into a 7-figure case.
- kens 3y agoThe claim is that allowing corner-crossing would cause the ranch to lose 25% of its value, and the ranch is currently valued at $31.1 million. Details: https://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/news/wyoming/article_a5197326-df94-53ce-82bd-e640acd1929d.html https://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/news/wyoming/article_a519... (I'm not justifying this claim, of course, just providing information in case anyone was wondering where the number came from.)
- wkat4242 3y agoBut if corner crossing is legal that value was never accurate in the first place. It can't be considered 'lost'. This is really some pretty contrived reasoning.
- HDThoreaun 3y agoThere's some precedent saying corner crossing is not legal. The owner almost certainly bought the property with that in mind.
- kjs3 3y agoTo be less charitable, the owner almost certainly bought the property thinking he could use his billions to bully people into not crossing the corner, allowing him to use not only the property he bought, but also the property that belongs to the people as his personal back yard.
- The_Schwartz 3y ago[flagged]
- The_Schwartz 3y agoEh maybe I’m being harsh calling him that. It’s been a long day. I don’t think I’m wrong though
- solarmist 3y agoThat’s fine. HN just isn’t the place for that.
- angry_octet 3y agoYou're not wrong; https://wyofile.com/corner-crossing-landowner-gave-millions-to-conservatives-conservation/ https://wyofile.com/corner-crossing-landowner-gave-millions-...
- thehappypm 3y agoUck eah! his s uch a ig in or ublic ands!
- mcv 3y agoIt's bizarre to me that this is even an issue at all. How does the landowner justify millions of damage even if they had walked on his land? Is there no right to cross private property if that's the only reasonable way to reach public land? There should be.
- 082349872349872 3y agoOutside the US, there are even many jurisdictions which make this question of easements moot, by having general rights to roam.
- dylan604 3y agoThis was one of the things I was enamored with when I visited New Zealand. It was my first experience with that.
- teruakohatu 3y agoUnfortunately in New Zealand we have no right to roam, beyond riverbeds and beaches. Access is negotiated, often by the Department of Conservation or a regional council, sometimes in exchange for paying a share in maintenance of an access road. This often means you might be able to walk through farmers paddocks, to access a track, but little guarantee that you could do this in the future.
- fragmede 3y agoThe Swedish call it Allemansrätten and it's lovely.
- lolc 3y agoThat was a surprising lesson for me when I was roaming California and asked a local how to reach that hill: "You can't, it's private." Hadn't encountered the idea before that one could restrict access to forest like that.
- opello 3y ago
- kortex 3y agoGreat ruling. The private/public checkerboard is pretty bizarre in the first place. A much more forethought approach would be to add a public buffer around everything (basically shrink the private plots by 6' or so).
- Gordonjcp 3y agoShrink them by 3m or 10%, whichever is greater.
- labster 3y agoThe checkerboard makes sense in the 19th century context. Railroads were funded by land speculators, but the government doesn’t want to give them all the best land. Since public/private is a binary distinction, they halftoned the land, sharing the profits and producing the legal gray area we see today.
- DavidPeiffer 3y agoIt would have been interesting if the west was divided into hexagons which tessellate perfectly and don't have this particular problem. I am curious with the technology available at the time, how much either method would have increased the surveying time, accuracy, and other generally important parameters?
- dmurray 3y agoIt's not immediately obvious to me how you colour 50% of hexagons equally dispersed on an infinite grid without cutting some areas off, can you provide a picture?
- ortusdux 3y agoAre we going to start seeing rounded corners on parcels now?
- dylan604 3y agoThey will need to update the plat maps to use padding instead of just using margins. maybe start using box-sizing:content-box rather than border-box too? but, border-radius could be effective as well.
- connicpu 3y agoIt probably should have been that way to begin with if you didn't buy either of the parcels that connect the two corner parcels
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoThe sheer rapaciousness of these multi-hundred millionaires is just disgusting. I'm glad to see that public opinion is largely starting to turn against these billionaire types as "geniuses" to boils on the ass of humanity.
- coffeebeqn 3y agoThis is their worst nightmare. Some disgusting poors milling about their hundreds (thousands?) of acres
- x3874 3y ago[flagged]
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y agoSimilar issue with “The Narrows” in TX, but instead relating to the riverbed: https://texasriverbum.com/index.php/2014/09/17/hike-and-hassled-to-the-narrows/ https://texasriverbum.com/index.php/2014/09/17/hike-and-hass...
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- Daz1 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y agoPlease don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- globular-toast 3y agoWe can't handle less. As a child you would scream if your toys were taken away. As adults we scream at the mere suggestion of something being taken away. It doesn't matter how rich you are. Some things never change. This is why we get stuck in ridiculous local optima and just can't get out. Individuals, including those in government, might be able to see better long term solutions, but getting there often involves convincing people to lose something. Nobody seems to be willing or able to explain their long term strategy. Or perhaps nobody is willing to listen. Start by being better than the people you hate. Campaign for strategies that involve short-term personal loss to get to better places.
- lazide 3y agoThe most bizarre thing about this situation is that IT WAS ALWAYS ILLEGAL FOR THE LANDOWNER TO BLOCK LAND THIS WAY. Since 1885. [https://uscode.house.gov/statviewer.htm?volume=23&page=322 https://uscode.house.gov/statviewer.htm?volume=23&page=322]
- arcticbull 3y agoYes, well, if we relied on settled and trivially obvious law to decide these things, what would Vinod Khosla do in his spare time? Besides of course chasing beachgoers down the waterfront with his rake. [1, 2] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/01/vinod-khosla-supreme-court-case-rejects-private-beach https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/01/vinod-kh... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/01/08/california-sues-vinod-khosla-beach/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/01/08/califor...
- Eduard 3y agoFor those out of the loop just as I was: https://www.onxmaps.com/onx-access-initiatives/corner-crossing-report https://www.onxmaps.com/onx-access-initiatives/corner-crossi... > What they had done was place an A-frame ladder across an intersection of property boundaries, the location where four parcels of land meet at a point. They climbed up one side of the ladder from public land, and down the other side of the ladder, stepping kitty-corner onto a different parcel of public land. But in doing so, their bodies also crossed through the airspace of the other two parcels meeting at that point, which were private. Their trial, set for mid-April, will decide if they trespassed when they passed through that private airspace. This sounds so constructed, as if they wanted to provoke the precedent.
- michaelhoffman 3y agoHow else are they supposed to cross from one corner to the other?
- idopmstuff 3y agoJust step across.
- californical 3y agoWhich is also illegal, btw, due to terrible us laws around public land
- Eduard 3y agoJust build a ladder high enough. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights
- labster 3y agoI see you, and raise you Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuius_est_solum,_eius_est_usque_ad_coelum_et_ad_inferos https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuius_est_solum,_eius_est_us...
- Aardwolf 3y agoWhat is this claimed $7.5 million in damages by stepping over a corner of land about? The wooden beam from the photograph got scratched or something?
- quickthrowman 3y agoI assume they’re including the value of the public land that was ‘inaccessible’ (not actually inaccessible as we found out) as part of the ranch, which is a ridiculous notion that should’ve been summarily dismissed with prejudice so the plaintiff could not re-file or appeal the verdict, but this ruling is a good one.
- Aardwolf 3y agoHmm, what actually happens then if you'd have a fully enclosed piece of public land without even any corners to reach it?
- quickthrowman 3y agoIt becomes landlocked and only accessible by land to the landowner(s) of the surrounding parcels. It is still accessible by air, but chartering a chopper is very expensive. I’m not sure what rules there are if there’s a navigable waterway that goes into the public land through private land, there may be issues if you have to portage around obstacles on the river onto the private land. I would assume that if you can access the navigable waterway from public land, you are allowed to use it to reach the landlocked public land by traveling along the waterway through private land, but I’m not 100% sure.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y agoBrought this up as a sibling comment in this thread, but “The Narrows” in Texas is almost precisely what you describe: https://texasriverbum.com/index.php/2014/09/17/hike-and-hassled-to-the-narrows/ https://texasriverbum.com/index.php/2014/09/17/hike-and-hass...
- kens 3y agoIn case anyone was wondering about the $7.75 million clamed damages, the claim is that allowing corner-crossing would cause the ranch to lose 25% of its value, and the ranch is currently valued at $31.1 million. Details: https://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/news/wyoming/article_a5197326-df94-53ce-82bd-e640acd1929d.html https://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/news/wyoming/article_a519... (I'm not justifying this claim, of course, just providing information in case anyone was wondering where the number came from.) Edit: the number came from a real estate agent acting as an expert witness, who said he would drop the value by 25% or 30%; it's not a mathematical/geometrical argument.
- thorncorona 3y agoThe owner, Fredric N Eshelman, and his lawyers by the way: > “Do they realize how much money my boss has … and property?” Grende said. https://wyofile.com/corner-crossing-video-do-they-realize-how-much-money-my-boss-has/ https://wyofile.com/corner-crossing-video-do-they-realize-ho...
- HarryHirsch 3y agoMeanwhile we are being told, even on this forum, that income inequality is no big thing and one shouldn't be envious, it's unseemly. Where is the revolution?
- dragonwriter 3y agoGiven that this forum skews toward the winning side of the income inequality game, its not really surprising to find that sentiment overrepresented here.
- HarryHirsch 3y agoAlways remember: if it can be used against them it will be used against you!
- 3y ago
- londons_explore 3y agoFor some reason, this domain is blocked by my ISP's illegal content filter. So here is a mirror: https://archive.ph/vVoLH https://archive.ph/vVoLH
- IvyMike 3y agoI would be a terrible rich person, since I wouldn't care one whit about someone crossing "my airspace". Hell, I'd donate an acre to to the state at the corner just to let people cross. Fred Eshelman has a large fraction of a billion dollars at his disposal and has given away over $100 million dollars to UNC, just chalk this up as a donation and walk away.
- Zak 3y agoThe fact that you don't see the ability to buy land adjacent to public land and charge people money for access to the public land may be part of why you're not a rich person.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- devoutsalsa 3y agoYou could make it an experience. Pay to have an ornery rancher catch you & lock you up in an old timey jail with the iron bars. Have them locked up with a cattle rustler whose brother rips the window off the prison wall with a horse, then escape to go rob a train. The possibilities are endless.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dools 3y ago> The men corner-crossed in 2020 and 2021 to hunt public land enmeshed in Eshelman’s 22,045-acre ranch. What sort of a sociopathic son of a bitch do you have to be to tie up so many resources on such a minor transgression? That dude eats babies for sure.
- irthomasthomas 3y agoI'm surprised landowners in Wyoming own the airspace above their land. Normally you are only allowed to control as much airspace as required for the ordinary enjoyment of your property (for buildings and such). https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/2019/title-10/chapter-4/article-3/section-10-4-302/ https://law.justia.com/codes/wyoming/2019/title-10/chapter-4...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dboreham 3y agoIn case folks from outside the region are wondering how this situation came to be: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land)
- duxup 3y agoThis is bizarre. I’m all for property rights but if you own a big chunk of land …. this seems less consequential than someone stepping off the sidewalk onto my lawn, or an out of control kid crashing their bike into my yard… Anyone using the ladder in the photo seems VERY considerate.
- HDThoreaun 3y agoBasically the issue for the owner here is the most valuable land is the mountain, which is wholly on the public portion. If corner crossing is allowed then he can't sell hunting rights to that mountain for as much because you can just go for free. But if corner crossing isn't allowed he can continue to use the public land while keeping everyone else off.
- seattle_spring 3y agoThe owner should pay millions in fines for illegally blocking access to public land for so many years.
- exabrial 3y agoThe land owner was an idiot to let this go to trial. He'd been a lot richer if he constructed a private road and charged a toll. He'd have defacto control of who crosses and it'd be quite profitable too. Instead he got caselaw against him and is left with nothing. Lesson about greed here!
- jeroenhd 3y agoThere's a good chance the land owner already rents out access to the public land for quite a lot of money. By allowing corner crossing, people willing to go the long way around can get to the public land for free.
- pyrophane 3y agoThis always seemed like a matter of wealth + intent meeting a law firm willing to make the argument rather than a viable legal theory. I can't imagine that if this was a significant cost for the party filing the suit that they would have prosecuted it. Given the wording of the law (even absent the recent subsequent laws) you can't claim privilege over public land like that. If the ruling were any different it would have been terrible for the idea of public lands being for public use.
- HDThoreaun 3y agoThe law firm here was the DA
- meindnoch 3y agoI want to buy a fractal-shaped piece of land, that has zero area (thus should be cheap), but corner-locks the whole Earth.
- jakeinspace 3y agoI’ll do the same to you. Perhaps if everyone on earth does the same, we’ll have effective global right to roam (or else, we’ll all need to swim out to international waters).
- supernova87a 3y agoIs it me, or does anyone else find it frustrating that reporters reporting about some court case habitually cannot quote the exact ruling and link to PDF that people can read for themselves? It's not like they didn't have the source material to base the story on, so why can't they pass that along to the reader in this day and age, to credit the source? But no, apparently a retold story in someone else's words is better than being able to read the 50-page document that actually lays out the ruling..
- weaksauce 3y agoIt's a pet peeve of mine too. I wish there was some kind of ethics in journalism law to cite known textual sources but that would likely run against the first amendment and be somewhat onerous a requirement to keep up to date as the links change.
- lolinder 3y agoDefinitely! If you haven't found it yet, here's the link: https://www.wyd.uscourts.gov/sites/wyd/files/opinions/22-cv-67_SWS_Order.pdf https://www.wyd.uscourts.gov/sites/wyd/files/opinions/22-cv-...
- supernova87a 3y agoThank you very much!
- mr_toad 3y agoNews sites have their own sense of entitlement - that they’re entitled to your attention, and they definitely don’t want you clicking on a link to another site (unless it’s an add).
- opportune 3y agoNews websites rarely link externally because they want you to stay on their site and don’t want to improve the SEO of other sites (which may be other news media). To be fair, there are legitimate reasons too. Links can become invalid and they most likely don’t want to deal with the headache of fixing that/perceived UX issues of not fixing it. Even worse, linked content could be easily replaced with something… unsavory
- bickfordb 3y agoI'm surprised there isn't a reasonable setback for fences abutting public lands like this
- chrisbrandow 3y agoRefreshing that a bit of sanity prevailed. I’ve been mad about this for months.
- cogman10 3y agoI really wish we could pass a federal "right to roam" like they have in England. Nobody should be the sole owner of a beach, lake, river, or mountain.
- balls187 3y agoSwedes have this figured out. Never would work in America, but I’m all for it.
- rupi 3y agoSteve Rinella of Meateater interviewed the hunters in this case on his podcast. It is quite an entertaining listen - 1:03 is where he explains the background and 1:08 onwards is where the interview starts: https://www.themeateater.com/listen/meateater/ep-342-getting-busted-for-touching-air https://www.themeateater.com/listen/meateater/ep-342-getting...
- femiagbabiaka 3y agoThe US needs a national right to roam.
- chromoblob 3y agoSo this means that, legally, private land is not a closed set (doesn't contain the points where boundaries touch).
- Helmut10001 3y agoOn a sidenode, in Germany, where land is much more sparse, there are usually trespassing rules. First, if a land (public or private) is inaccessible, there's usually a trespassing note added to the land register, marking where either the public or the other land owner is allowed to walk/drive/pass through. The owner of the trespassed land is not allowed to remove or block these e.g. driveways. Then there is the other case of large agriculture or forest lands. Without a specific reason, you are not allowed as a land owner to close this off to the public. Forests are to be held accessible to the public (e.g. for nature recreation), even if you own them. Even for farm land with animals, it is usually accepted that people (hikers, mountainbike etc.) pass through these. In case of fences for animals, it is also generally accepted to climb over these (of course, you're responsible for damage either to the property or yourself*). And a last anecdotal note: I have a friend who hikes with a group of 3-4 people every year based on (pretty) straight lines through Germany. They usually sleep on the ground (without tents) wherever they are when night comes. This is often on private land. Their experiences were almost all positive, land owners even come to bring them water, to talk etc. Some first watch curiously but are fine when the story is told. * There's a strange ruling that you, as an owner, can be held liable for people hurting themselves on your ground, even when they're (e.g.) thieves trying to break into your property. I think this ruling is created to prevent land owners creating traps, where children can fall into holes etc.
- LatteLazy 3y agoThe only explanation of why these inaccessible pieces of land I can find [0] fails to explain why they were created this way. Does anyone know? Apparently to encourage railways railway builders were given every other square mile of land on each side of the railway. But that should only create 2 "rows" of checkers, each accessible either from above or below. The only way to create a full checkerboard would be to build multiple railways, in parallel, only 2 miles apart. I cannot believe people did that, so what am I missing here? [0]. https://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/public-lands-locked-up https://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/public-lands-locked-up
- nicwolff 3y agoLink to article on original site https://wyofile.com/judge-rules-in-favor-of-corner-crossing-hunters/ https://wyofile.com/judge-rules-in-favor-of-corner-crossing-... Link to judge's decision https://www.wyd.uscourts.gov/sites/wyd/files/opinions/22-cv-67_SWS_Order.pdf https://www.wyd.uscourts.gov/sites/wyd/files/opinions/22-cv-...