You hitting any secret backwaters outside the railroad refuge limits over private land with these super high river levels right now? I'm guessing right now as we speak there are dozens of fisherman fishing over flooded lands on the river that would normally be dry right now.
Yup - like most constitutional issues, a winding ever changing definition to fit the facts, policy and time. This ruling was no different.
Sounds like a Dwight statement lol. Does the law differentiate between frozen water and liquid water?? Doesnt look like it. You may be onto something here.
Waterfowl hunting has some impact from this case but hands down the most impacted recreation/use is ice fishing. Historically, the WI resident or visitor to our state did not need to worry about whether the solid ice in which they walked on to access their fishing spot was within the OHWM or not. Now, they will and it may lead to some future lawsuits/issues.
My guess is little real world impact and folks will forget about it in a few news cycles. In fact, they should appeal and let it die as lower court one off.
Are you saying that if the state appeals the landowner will let it die off?
Very good point bringing a very real fishing aspect into the question. Thats a huge consideration. If it has the time to turn to thick enough ice, Id certainly say that its within OHWM, or is setting a new boundary for the OHWM, which obviously is not stationary through time.
My typo made my remark less than clear - sorry. I am saying if the state lets it die at the district court they may be better off than appealing. In savvier days it was common to choose that path (for example lots of ridiculously stretched RICO claims were allowed to die at district court level rather than risk losing the hammer nationwide) - but now that politics is a blood sport for the daily news cycle everybody seems to appeal everything as high as possible all of the time — which is often bad strategy.
This was Fred Eshelmen's mistake in WY. If he wanted to keep his personal access to public land, he wouldn't have gone after the guys corner crossing at all, nor continued to appeal it (although we'll see, he may win still). Most likely, he would have been better off to let them do it and not make a big deal out of it.
My analysis has been a 2 minute read of the constitutional text a user linked to, plus general legal context from experience. No deeply studied insight on this one by me
It is not uncommon for an early heavy snowfall to quickly rise a local river or wetland and than due an extreme cold following the event, it freezes up. So its not quite so simple.
Maybe I'm really over simplifying here but the corner crossing case basically ends up boiling down to whether or not passing through the direct airspace above a person property constitutes as a trespass. Really doesn't matter if its at a direct corner or if there is a 2 foot gap and you get a good running start and jump across it without touching the dirt.
You can’t go on their land- you have to stay in the water
*unless you are going around an obstacle, in which case you may exit but must immediately re-enter upon passing said obstacle.
At least two really big differences . . .
