by Michael Howell
A couple of Bitterroot valley residents who sued the Forest Service for allowing public access across their land, only to have the case dismissed for being filed after the statute of limitations contained in the law had passed, got a reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court last week when it sent the issue back to the District Court ordering that the case be heard.
The litigants, Larry Steven “Wil” Wilkins and Janet Stanton own property along Robbins Gulch Road bordering the Bitterroot National Forest. Prior owners, they claim, negotiated a limited access easement on the road with the Forest Service in 1962 that does not allow use by the general public. While some use by members of the public may have occurred over the years, the issue came to a head in 2006 when the Forest Service placed a sign on the road allowing public access. The traffic and subsequent disturbances increased to the point that in 2017 the landowners asked the Forest Service to live up to the easement restrictions. When the agency declined to offer any solutions, the landowners filed suit in federal court in 2018 under the Quiet Title Act.
Attorneys for the U.S. government argued in federal district court that it was too late to file the lawsuit because the law contains a 12-year statute of limitations starting from the time that a person knew or should have known that a prohibited action was being permitted. A District Court Judge decided in favor of the government and dismissed the case for being in violation of the statute of limitations. That decision was appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals where it was upheld. The recent U.S. Supreme Court order in the case reverses those decisions and the case has been sent back to District Court for a full hearing.
The only question addressed by the Supreme Court in this case was whether or not the statute of limitations is a “jurisdictional” limitation, in which case the court has no jurisdiction to consider the case beyond that deadline, or whether it is a “claims processing rule” in which case the deadline may be extended for “valid reasons.”
The issue of whether a time bar in the law is “subject-matter jurisdictional” or a “non-jurisdictional claims processing rule” has been an issue in other cases recently. Twice previously, in Corp. v. United States and United