Eric, I'm only familiar with the original, "famous" case, so if there was another case that came up, I apologize if I'm coming off as argumentative. I don't believe there was an actual ruling to set a legal precedent here. My understanding of the case is as follows... The defendants chose to not continue defending the case due to lack of funds, so the court never ruled on ownership of the riverbed, which is the real issue at stake and can still be contested in the future. What happened was the court initially granted a partial summary judgement since the plaintiffs simply met the burden of showing title prima facie which simply ruled that the landowners potentially have a legitimate claim to ownership. While the defendants originally intended to continue fighting, they ran out of money. The final order before the case was struck was that the judge approved a consent order that prevents THOSE defendants from ever walking on the stream bed again. Basically, the court only ruled that the landowners might own the stream bed, and that the two guys can't wade in the river without prior permission. In the end, it would be extremely difficult for a private entity to have won this type of case anyway. In order to have had the plaintiff's claim for summary judgement rejected, the defendant would have needed to prove an equal or superior claim to the land. In this specific situation, the only group that could do that would be the Commonwealth itself.
I'm with you though - the fact that the case even came up is enough to keep me from ever testing it. Of course, as you mentioned, this would not apply to Bottom Creek as it isn't navigable, and the laws are much more clear in that case. It still doesn't give the crazy guy the right to threaten to kill you though!!
On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 10:00 PM, Eric Y. <theericyoung@gmail.com> wrote:
In March, the court did rule in favor of the landowner on the issue of wading - fishing, I don't know, but that ruling is enough to deter me. Another thing to note is that while the area covered in the land grant is not growing, the number of landowners who can make the claim is, as some of that property is developed and sold piecemeal. That could mean that while a landowner had a claim and previously chose not to enforce it, the new owners on the same sections can still make the claim, or at least that's what happened in the event that spurred the big controversy. All of that said, it is incredibly easy to avoid the off-limits sections and as many times as I have fished the Jackson, I've never found myself hard-pressed to find trout on the public sections. Indeed, every time I get to a sign on the bank, I am on that "one last cast, then I'm heading back in... well, one more cast" stage of the day. Plenty of trout and plenty of water to go around.Jeff, I can't remember the guy's name, but I worked at/hung out in whitewater shop, and he was pretty well-known for doing that stuff. It was generally known that he was all show and apparently had some sort of distant familial relation to the county sheriff. Every once in a while you'd hear of someone showing up at the take out with a deputy waiting for them telling them they'd get in trouble one day if they kept running it. Realistically, he probably had a more valid claim considering Bottom is probably not really classified as navigable.--To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tidal-potomac-fly-rodders/64d2477b-1c7c-4e5f-837c-04dddd9ee49d%40googlegroups.com.
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