Lawyers for four hunters are urging the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) to reject an appeal from Iron Bar Holdings, challenging a 10th Circuit Court of Appeals decision allowing “corner crossing” to access public land in Carbon County, WY. In a 39-page filing, the hunters’ lawyers argue the case does not warrant review, contending that Iron Bar’s failed trespass claims were correctly rejected under federal law.
At issue is a long-standing Western land puzzle: public and private parcels form a checkerboard of alternating square miles. Some public parcels can only be accessed by stepping from one public square to another at the corner, without crossing onto private property.
Iron Bar owns some of these checkerboarded parcels and claims that its property rights allow it to block corner crossing. The hunters’ brief argues otherwise, citing Congress’s 1885 Unlawful Inclosures of Public Lands Act (UIA), which forbids any effort to completely prevent access to federal lands “by whatever means.”
The 10th Circuit held that Iron Bar’s claim would unlawfully “inclose” public land by denying all access, echoing the Supreme Court’s 1897 Camfield v. United States decision that private rights must yield when they obstruct public access.
Iron Bar contends the ruling conflicts with Leo Sheep Co. v. United States (1979), which barred the government from building a road across private land. But the hunters counter that Leo Sheep is concerned with creating new access routes, not extinguishing existing access protected by the UIA. They also dismiss Iron Bar’s claims of unconstitutional “takings,” noting the company purchased the land in 2005—well after the UIA limited such rights. Calling Iron Bar’s warnings of nationwide trespass “hyperbole,” the hunters emphasize that corner crossing remains rare and carefully limited, and urge the court to let the 10th Circuit’s decision stand.
The hunters’ brief also stresses that the 10th Circuit’s ruling was firmly grounded in the UIA’s text and long-standing precedent. The statute declares that “all inclosures of any public lands” are unlawful and specifically prohibits fencing, intimidation or “any other unlawful means” of preventing free passage. The panel concluded that Iron Bar’s civil trespass action amounted to just such an obstruction because it would extinguish the only lawful means of reaching thousands of acres of public land.
Court documents stated that Iron Bar argued that “inclosure” must mean a physical fence, but the record showed the company had erected chained t-posts with “No Trespassing” signs near Elk Mountain. Both the district court and the 10th Circuit found those barriers violated the UIA. More broadly, the appellate panel explained that Congress wrote the law to prevent not only fences but also lawsuits or threats that effectively withdraw public land from use.
The brief said the decision also drew support from earlier rulings, including Camfield and the 8th Circuit’s decision in Mackay v. Uinta Development Co., which barred landowners from using trespass suits to prevent shepherds from accessing public ranges. In each case, courts recognized that checkerboard owners cannot convert federal land into private property by closing off all access to it. The 10th Circuit emphasized that Iron Bar’s position would create exactly that outcome—granting one landowner control over vast swaths of public land Congress intended to remain open.
Producers file amicus brief
In August, the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, Wyoming Wool Growers Association and Montana Stockgrowers Association filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to grant Iron Bar’s petition and overturn the 10th Circuit’s ruling.
The groups argue the case carries “vast national implication and importance,” with countless landowners and agricultural operations potentially affected by the court’s reading of the UIA. For more than a century, they note, corner crossing has never been recognized as a lawful means of accessing federal lands.
The brief warns that legitimizing corner crossing will impose new administrative and enforcement burdens on state and federal governments, while exposing ranchers and property owners to unprecedented legal risks. The groups also contend that the 10th Circuit’s reliance on Camfield sidestepped questions raised by Leo Sheep Co. v. United States, creating uncertainty over which precedent should govern. They maintain that only SCOTUS can resolve this ambiguity.
Background
Petitioner Iron Bar Holdings is owned by Fred Eshelman, a pharmaceutical executive from North Carolina. In 2005, Eshelman purchased checkerboarded land around Elk Mountain in Carbon County, WY. Rising at the northern end of the Medicine Bow Mountains, Elk Mountain is a prime elk habitat, and interspersed among Iron Bar’s lands are roughly 11,000 acres of public land.
Court documents state since acquiring the property, Iron Bar has aggressively sought to block access. Employees confronted hunters on public parcels, and in 2015, the company installed chained t-posts at a corner near a county road to prevent crossing. In 2020, the hunters attempted to step over those corners using GPS and markers. The hunters returned in 2021, this time with a ladder to avoid the chained posts, and again stayed entirely on public land. They never touched Iron Bar’s land but were accused of trespass. A jury later acquitted them.
Undeterred, Iron Bar pursued a civil suit claiming the hunters had violated its airspace rights. In 2022, a federal district court ruled for the hunters, holding that corner crossing without contact or damage is not trespass and that federal law limits state property rights in checkerboard lands. In 2023, the 10th Circuit unanimously affirmed, stressing that the UIA prohibits landowners from extinguishing public access “by whatever means.”
The Supreme Court has not yet decided whether it will take up Iron Bar’s petition. The justices will begin their fall session on Oct. 6, when they could determine whether to hear the case or let the 10th Circuit’s ruling stand. If the Court declines review, the ruling by the appeals court will legalize corner crossing between sections of federal land in the six states under the 10th Circuit’s jurisdiction: Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming. — Charles Wallace, WLJ contributing editor
