Angus M. Thuermer Jr., WyoFile
Hateful vitriol, including a postcard from “Satan,” has prompted the owner of Elk Mountain Ranch to ask a federal court to stall the judge’s own decision that corner crossing is not trespassing.
Attorneys for Fredric Eshelman’s Iron Bar Holdings company filed for a stay Friday, telling Wyoming’s Chief U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl there’s “a risk of harm” if his decision remains in effect. Eshelman wants to temporarily reverse Skavdahl’s June 1 decision while the ranch owner appeals the case.
Eshelman’s lawyers also claim that the corner-crossing ruling will cause irreparable harm to the North Carolina resident’s business at his 22,045-acre Carbon County ranch. Corner crossing is the act of stepping from one piece of public land to another without setting foot on private property.
Eshelman’s wildlife-rich ranch enmeshes some 6,000 acres of public land in a checkerboard pattern of ownership. By corner crossing, however, hikers and hunters can reach that public land without setting foot on private property.
“[T]he ranch is bracing for an influx of people who will attempt to corner-cross through ranch property.”
ELK MOUNTAIN RANCH EMPLOYEE AFFIDAVIT
Eshelman’s unsuccessful federal civil suit against four hunters argued that passing through the airspace above ranch property at checkerboard corners constitutes a trespass. The Missouri hunters broke with convention when they corner crossed at Elk Mountain in 2020 and 2021, and Eshelman’s motion predicts more people will now come.
“Currently, the ranch is bracing for an influx of people who will attempt to corner-cross through ranch property,” one employee stated in an affidavit. They could bring ill-intent, lawyers say.
“[T]here are many people who not only dislike — but actually hate — [Eshelman’s Iron Bar Holdings company] and may seek revenge … by imposing property damage … blatantly trespassing … or threatening Plaintiff’s representatives and employees while corner crossing,” the motion states.
Court filings say the hunters’ attorneys opposed a stay.
On Elk Mountain the Missouri men bagged two six-point and one five-point elk during their first corner-crossing trip — about a week long — in 2020. The private and public land had been the exclusive domain of Eshelman, a hunter himself, until the Missourians challenged the notion that corner crossing was illegal.
Special delivery
Eshelman’s motion cites and offers “Satan’s” postcard, two emails, one Facebook post, a text message and reported voicemail messages as evidence of danger.
“The vast attention this case has garnered in the news and social media” produced shockingly vulgar, graphic and hateful communications that “directly threaten” the ranch and employees, the motion states. The employee affidavit states that “[C]allers are smart enough not to make outright threats.”
“To prevent, or at least minimize the risk of violence and confrontation, justice warrants a stay,” the motion reads. “A stay will notify the public the matter is unsettled, and it will minimize the risk of public confrontation with Plaintiff and its employees.”
The postcard, signed “From Hell, Satan,” but postmarked in Denver, stated “we hold a place for you here in the eternal fire.” Addressed to “Fred,” and mailed to the ranch, it said “[y]ou belong with us, here in the darkness, abandoned by god.”
An April 23 email to Eshelman stated that the author hoped the ranch owner dies a painful death and said that, in a just world, the hunters would be allowed “to harvest your organs for the money to pay their legal fees.”
Other messages took on ranch property manager Steve Grende, who confronted the Missourians in 2021 while they were hunting on public land. Grende yelled and swore at the men and followed them in his truck, according to testimony in 2022.
The text message said Grende would get an “ass whippin’” if he harassed or hazed hunters again.
For evidence of irreparable harm to the business, the motion recounts a voicemail message in which the caller said he would work to see the ranch business “go down the drain.”
Judge ‘mistaken’
After repeated requests by Elk Mountain Ranch in 2021, Carbon County prosecuting attorney Ashley Mayfield Davis ordered misdemeanor citations be issued against the four hunters for trespassing. A jury in 2022 found them not guilty.
Meanwhile, Eshelman filed the civil suit against the four, claiming up to $7.75 million in damages for their alleged airspace trespass.
The hunters successfully defended themselves, arguing that the Unlawful Inclosures Act of 1885 prevented the ranch owner from blocking or trying to obstruct — including with threats and intimidation — their passage from one piece of federal land to another.
The case arises from and applies to the checkerboard-ownership landscape 20 miles north and south of the Union Pacific Railroad across southern Wyoming. There, alternating mile-square sections of private and public land would allow landowners to prevent the public from accessing public land if corner crossing was considered trespass and illegal.
Across the U.S. some 8.3 million acres of public land are inaccessible to the public under any interpretation that corner crossing is trespassing and illegal. Wyoming has about 2.4 million acres of “corner locked” land, much of it in the checkerboard area.
“The final order [from Skavdahl] created uncertainty for property rights in those thousands of acres of property,” Eshelman’s motion contends. “Implementation of the Final Order creates confusion about the status of private property rights, for both private property owners and the public.”
The motion states that Skavdahl was “mistaken” when he relied on a previous Unlawful Inclosures Act case known as McKay rather than a more recent one known as Leo Sheep. Eshelman has a likelihood of winning on appeal, the motion states and a stay will not substantially injure defendants.
Two attorneys who hadn’t previously been involved in the case filed the motion along with Eshelman’s lawyer Greg Weisz. The newcomers, Theresa Wardon Benz and Kristin L Arthur, with the Denver firm Davis, Graham and Stubbs, specialize in appeals.
This article was originally published by WyoFile and is republished here with permission. WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.
