Supreme Court hears initial arguments in Robbins Gulch access case

The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday, November 30 from opposing attorneys in a case brought by some Ravalli County property owners against the Bitterroot National Forest over public access along the Robbins Gulch Road south of Darby. But the single question before the U. S. Supreme Court at this point is whether or not the 12-year statute of limitation for bringing a lawsuit under the Quiet Title Act is “jurisdictional” meaning it can’t be extended, or whether it is a federal rule that could be extended if there were compelling reasons to do so. 

Landowners Larry Wilkins and Janet Stanton sued the Forest Service in Federal Court under the Quiet Title Act in 2018, claiming that the 1962 easement with the Forest Service to use the road did not allow for unrestricted public access. It only allowed agents of the United States and specific assignees such as timber contractors to use the road. They additionally alleged that the easement imposes a duty on the United States “to patrol and maintain” the road, and that the United States had violated that duty by permitting “ongoing unrestricted use by the general public.” 

The government contended that the suit was barred by a law [28 U.S.C. 2409a(g)], which provides that “[a]ny civil action under” the Quiet Title Act, “except for an action brought by a State, shall be barred unless it is commenced within twelve years of the date upon which it accrued.” It further specifies that an action “shall be deemed to have accrued on the date the plaintiff or his predecessor in interest knew or should have known of the claim…”  

 Although a magistrate judge recommended denying the government’s motion, concluding that the 12-year bar was not jurisdictional, a District Court Judge rejected the magistrate’s recommendation and dismissed the case as untimely, deciding that the key question in the case was “when a reasonable landowner would have known that the Forest Service believed its easement granted public access or opened the road to the public.” 

The district court found that a reasonable landowner would have possessed that knowledge prior to August 23, 2006, 12 years before the complaint was filed. The court explained that, since at least 1972, public Forest Service maps have identified Robbins Gulch Road as a National Forest System road that provides unrestricted access to National Forest lands. The court observed that “[t]h[o]se maps tell a clear story—the Forest Service has been informing the public since, at least, 1972 that it may access the Bitterroot National Forest by using” Robbins Gulch Road. The court additionally found that “the public heard th[at] message and has been using the road as a public access route since that time,” and that “[a] reasonable landowner observing this public use would have known to check local maps to see whether the road was designated as public or restricted” and, “[u]pon doing so, would have been aware of the Forest Service’s adverse claim prior to August 23, 2006.” 

Finally, the district court noted that the Forest Service had temporarily closed the road to the public in May 2006 due to unsafe conditions, “erecting a physical barrier and posting a sign,” which “would have provided a reasonable landowner with notice of the Forest Service’s adverse claim.” The court concluded that, “[a]lthough the record contains evidence that [petitioners’] claims likely accrued sometime in the 1970s, the record is abundantly clear that [the claims] accrued, at the latest, on May 3, 2006.”

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court’s dismissal of the case as untimely.

Ben Snyder, Assistant to the Solicitor General, argued the government’s case and Jeffrey McCoy from the Pacific Legal Foundation argued on behalf of the plaintiffs. 

McCoy told the Justices, “Jurisdiction is a word with many meanings,” adding that Congress didn’t clearly spell out its intention in the law.

Justice Roberts acknowledged that the Court’s use of the term jurisdictional has not always been consistent and that its approach to similar cases has changed over time, relying more heavily on text of laws passed by Congress rather than the hearing transcripts and reports that justices dissected at the expense of legislative language. 

“Today we have a different approach,” said Roberts.

Both sides of the case got some very testy questions thrown at them from various Justices, making it difficult to guess how the case might finally be decided. 

A Supreme Court win for Wilkins would not resolve his battle with the Forest Service — but it would allow him to continue his fight against the agency in federal court.