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Anglers Being Sued By Land Owner
- Thread starter Reel Antsy
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Crownline 242
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Besides the issue of private/public property, how/why would someone sue for $10,000 for trespassing? Did they cause $10,000 in damages or something? I thought for trespassing, you would be issued a summons to appear in municipal court and pay a fine.
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From the sounds of it the municipality will not do anything for the property owner (rightfully so) and the property owner is attempting to make it a civil action hoping they run out of money and he can win by default.
I'll bite.
Suing the fishermen is heavy handed, but these colonial land grant/riparian rights situations are common. Our bay and beaches here belong to local towns under a colonial era patent, basically a land grant from the King that predates the US. It's held up in court many times. It can work in our favor, as it has been used to blunt heavy handed state and federal regulation. For example when NY State tried to implement the idiotic salt water fishing license, the towns here sued to block it since they are charged with regulating fishing in these waters and they didn't wish to require licenses. They won a few rounds, before all that got scrapped.
Everything is owned by someone, whether an individual or "the people" i.e. various collections of them.
I agree it's weird that a river would suddenly be private at a point along it's length, but where's the cutoff on that? If you have a muddy ditch of a brook 2 feet wide running through your back yard, you want some guy in waders walking through while you're having a barbecue, just because further on it's a navigable waterway? If you put up chicken wire at either end and put some Koi in there, are they your fish because they are on your property? Apparently the law (or some law, some places) says they are, so someone else is not free to catch them.
The guy paid money for something in a deed, he's entitled to have his day in court and determine what he actually does own.
I believe this also came up with some of the midwest flooding a few years back - guys were fishing where water now was that was actually some guy's farm field. He didn't lose his land rights because some water temporarily washed over it.
Suing the fishermen is heavy handed, but these colonial land grant/riparian rights situations are common. Our bay and beaches here belong to local towns under a colonial era patent, basically a land grant from the King that predates the US. It's held up in court many times. It can work in our favor, as it has been used to blunt heavy handed state and federal regulation. For example when NY State tried to implement the idiotic salt water fishing license, the towns here sued to block it since they are charged with regulating fishing in these waters and they didn't wish to require licenses. They won a few rounds, before all that got scrapped.
Everything is owned by someone, whether an individual or "the people" i.e. various collections of them.
I agree it's weird that a river would suddenly be private at a point along it's length, but where's the cutoff on that? If you have a muddy ditch of a brook 2 feet wide running through your back yard, you want some guy in waders walking through while you're having a barbecue, just because further on it's a navigable waterway? If you put up chicken wire at either end and put some Koi in there, are they your fish because they are on your property? Apparently the law (or some law, some places) says they are, so someone else is not free to catch them.
The guy paid money for something in a deed, he's entitled to have his day in court and determine what he actually does own.
I believe this also came up with some of the midwest flooding a few years back - guys were fishing where water now was that was actually some guy's farm field. He didn't lose his land rights because some water temporarily washed over it.
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I'll have to do some research, but, wasn't there something called the "Navigable Waters Protection Act" that sort of negated the land owners claim to the water itself thereby opening them up to waterbourn traffic without restriction?
Maybe I'm mistaken but the deep reaches of my memory seem to recall something like this. Like I said, I'll do some digging.
Bob
Maybe I'm mistaken but the deep reaches of my memory seem to recall something like this. Like I said, I'll do some digging.
Bob
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well if he makes them run out money, where is the $10,000 supposed to come from?
Personally, I hope this gets thrown out of court as a frivolous lawsuit and the land owner has to pay for court costs. He may have a gripe, but he is clearly going after the wrong parties IMO.
Tim