The brouhaha began in the spring of 1994 when Robbins bought the ranch from George Nelson. It appears that Robbins was not born to the ways of the West. He had been in the lumber business in Alabama, selling custom flooring, but his heart hungered for a new career where the buffalo roam and the skies are not cloudy all day.
Perhaps the greenhorn did not fully understand the rules of western land management. The 80,000 acres involved in this case are partly public and partly private. The federal BLM regularly swaps some of its federal land for easements over private land, and vice versa. In this case, the government negligently failed to record a critical easement before Robbins bought the ranch from Nelson and moved in. Under Wyoming law, he took unencumbered ownership.
In the nature of new owners, Robbins set about improving access to his property. He hoped to establish a combination dude ranch and serious cattle operation. In his eagerness to get started, he "bladed and crowned" a road on a right-of-way he thought he owned and may in fact have owned. The government charged him with trespass but offered to settle for $1,617. He responded by billing the government for $2,250 in road repairs.
On the surface, it's a nickel and dime dispute at a preliminary stage. Why did the high court take it? There must be more here than meets the immediate eye.
In his petition, Clement describes the case as one of "critical importance" to the government's responsibilities in land management. Moreover, he worries that Robbins has based his suit in part on a charge that the defendants violated RICO (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), which seems a remarkable statutory stretch. Clement quotes from a recent federal case that ridiculed such a springboard: "Regulators do not become racketeers by acting like aggressive regulators."
Evidently the federal regulators in this case were indeed "aggressive." In his opinion a year ago this week, Circuit Judge Michael R. Murphy found in Robbins' favor all the way. The neophyte rancher had ordered government negotiators to stay off land that was clearly his. Until the Bureau of Land Management filed for formal condemnation, said the court, Robbins had a right to exclude.
Judge Murphy's opinion leaves much unsaid. He remarks obliquely that local officials of the BLM accused Robbins falsely of various "crimes" in an effort to "extort" a right-of-way. Moreover, they vindictively canceled his grazing privileges. They denied him a permit for special recreation use. They refused to maintain a public road providing access to the Robbins land. They interfered with his guest cattle drives. Eventually, their badgering put him out of the dude ranch business.
Robbins has brought some high-class hired guns into play. In the Supreme Court, his brief in opposition bears the impressive signatures of Thomas C. Goldstein of Washington's prestigious Akin, Gump law firm, and Jeffrey L. Fisher of Stanford Law School's litigation clinic. The highly regarded Pacific Legal Foundation has signed on to a friend-of-the-court brief. Oral argument in March will draw a crowd.
Justice Kilpatrick, meaning me in the press gallery, will rule that the high court never should have taken the case in this interlocutory stage, but ne'm mind: Go, dude! Black gum is tougher than thunder every time.
(Letters to Mr. Kilpatrick should be sent by e-mail to kilpatjj@aol.com.)
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