Judge rules in favor of corner-crossing hunters

[1srelluc]

A federal judge ruled Friday that four Missouri hunters did not trespass when they corner crossed and passed through the airspace above Fred Eshelman’s Elk Mountain Ranch.

Chief U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl granted the hunters’ request to dismiss most of Eshelman’s lawsuit that claimed the men trespassed and caused more than $7 million in damages. The men corner-crossed in 2020 and 2021 to hunt public land enmeshed in Eshelman’s 22,045-acre ranch.

Corner crossing involves stepping from one piece of public land to another at the common corner with two pieces of private property, all arranged in a checkerboard pattern. Corner crossing avoids setting foot on private land.

“Corner crossing on foot in the checkerboard pattern of land ownership without physically contacting private land and without causing damage to private property does not constitute an unlawful trespass.”
JUDGE SCOTT SKAVDAHL

Good to hear. Some of the landowners are ridiculous in their view of what is “theirs”.

As best as I can figure the $7million was apparently based on the fact that owner paid for exclusive control of the public land, and the hunters brought attention to the fact that he never legally controlled that land, at least as far as hunting went causing him to lose the imaginary control that he claimed he paid real dollars for.

There needs to be public easements into such locked-in public lands.