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Hunters also agree not to seek attorneys’ fees after judge rules they did not trespass when corner crossing
The owner of Elk Mountain Ranch has dropped the last remaining claim in a civil corner-crossing trespass suit — an allegation that a Missouri hunter stepped on his property well away from the contested corners.
In papers filed in U.S. District Court on June 1, an attorney for Iron Bar Holdings and Fred Eshelman told U.S. Chief District Judge Scott Skavdahl that the ranch owner is withdrawing the trespass claim associated with a digital marker known as Waypoint 6. That would preclude the need for a trial later this month.
Eshelman had sued four hunters claiming they trespassed while passing through the airspace above a corner of his property. Skavdahl ruled last week that the men did not trespass while corner crossing — stepping from one piece of public land to another without touching adjacent private property, all arranged in a checkerboard pattern of land ownership.
Skavdahl’s summary-judgment ruling does not preclude Eshelman from appealing the corner-crossing decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, an action that the hunters’ attorney said he expects.
In the course of the civil suit, which at one point sought $7.75 million in damages, Iron Bar and Eshelman alleged that, in addition to violating ranch airspace at several common corners with public land, one hunter also set foot elsewhere on the Carbon County Ranch.
The allegation arose following discovery of “Waypoint 6” — a location on Elk Mountain marked by hunter Zach Smith using the digital onX Hunt app. The waypoint proves that Smith was on the ranch, Eshelman’s lawyers contended.
Hunters say the waypoint could have been made from anywhere. In that Waypoint 6 was far from any of the several corners the hunters crossed in 2020 and 2021, Skavdahl separated disagreement over it from the larger corner-crossing issue.
Ruling in favor of the hunters regarding corner crossing, Skavdahl left the Waypoint 6 disagreement to be decided at a trial scheduled for later this month.
But he also ruled that Eshelman, if he were to win a Waypoint 6 argument in front of a jury, would be entitled to nominal damages only. That, the judge said, would amount to no more than $100.
“After considering the matter,” Eshelman’s attorney Greg Weisz wrote, “Plaintiff Iron Bar Holdings, LLC has determined the interest of judicial economy and justice warrant Plaintiff withdrawing the claims related to the Waypoint 6 issue and possible physical surface trespass by any of the Defendants on the Plaintiffs real property,”
The withdrawal obviates the need for a trial, Weisz said.
The two sides also agreed to pay their own attorneys’ fees, according to the filing. Other costs, however, would be subject to Skavdahl’s final ruling on the civil suit and also limited to what’s allowed under court rules.
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