Three federal judges are asking the Utah
Supreme Court to clarify the meaning of a short section of Utah law that
has big implications for counties' claims to roads criss-crossing
federal lands. Counties, joined by the state, have filed more
than 20 federal lawsuits in recent years, trying to get control of more
than 35,000 miles of roads or road segments under a Civil War-era
statute known as RS2477. On Friday, though, U.S. District Judges David
Nuffer, Clark Waddoups and Robert J. Shelby sent an order to the Utah
Supreme Court asking, essentially, whether Utah law bars the lawsuits. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, an
intervenor in the federal cases, argues that the Utah Code has a
seven-year "statute of repose" that means any lawsuits making a claim to
the roads had to be filed by 1983, seven years after RS2477 was
repealed in 1976. The first of the lawsuits was not filed until 2011. The federal judges write in their order that
"If SUWA's assertion is correct, then the R.S. 2477 Road Cases pending
before this court would be barred." But if the code is interpreted as a "statute of
limitations," the seven-year clock may not have begun ticking until the
counties discovered they were injured by federal action to close the
roads, according to case law cited in the order...more
Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
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