Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

The suit isn't about access. It's arguing (unsuccessfully, as it happens) that the checkerboard has created a de facto ownership pattern where large tracts are effectively private. So being forced to allow this "corner crossing" access into the interior of the ranch makes the property less valuable in aggregate and violates what I guess is a long-standing assumption in the real estate market.

I guess I don't much care, being neither a rural Wyoming property owner nor someone who wants access to all that public land in the checkerboard. But the net effect of this setup is that "big private ranches" are effectively illegal in Wyoming, and that strikes me as no less irrational than "you can't get to public land if it's surrounded".

View on HN

Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say “the act of owning a big private ranch and trying to claim public land that it surrounds as inaccessible is effectively illegal?” The fact that the end result is that “big private ranches are illegal” doesn’t strike me as irrational. These people are well aware that the large swathes of land around them are public land. The fact that they may have purchased them under the assumption that no one would be able to access that land isn’t really an idea that garners a whole lot of sympathy.

It has been illegal since 1885, but apparently the state doesn’t want the feds involved (it’s a fed law), and the fed is trying to look the other way - most likely because of very rich donors.

> But the net effect of this setup is that "big private ranches" are effectively illegal in Wyoming

No they aren't. All the private ranch owner has to do is purchase the land from its current owner. IE the government.

A private ranch can't steal that land from the government though, through some complicate surround maneuver, like from the board game "Go", of course.

Are these tracts actually being sold by the government? My understanding from the article is that they are being managed as general DOI/forestry land, there's no one in the government to take a check for them even if you want to write one.

> Are these tracts actually being sold by the government?

If you say "It is illegal for me, ajross, to purchase stale2002's house".

And then I respond by saying "No, it is not illegal for you to do that. All you have to do is get me to agree to sell you the house"

And then your response to this is by saying "But you aren't selling your house!"

This final response by you, does not prove the first statement you made to be true.

It continues to be legal for you to purchase my house, if I agree to it. Just like it continues to be legal for a rancher to purchase land from the government, if they agree to it.

Just because you are not very good at convincing the government/state legislator to sell you that land, does not make it illegal for you to purchase the land from them, if they choose to sell it to you.

I think when you are specifically the government and will definitely refuse to sell the land, the line is a little grayer.

Rather, if you, stale2002, tell me that "all" I need to do to build a large ranch is to purchase land that isn't for sale (and hasn't been for 140 years!)... your response does nothing to refute my point upthread, which is that large ranches in Wyoming are de facto illegal.

You can't have a big ranch. That's silly. You also can't use "corners" to prevent access to land you don't own, because that too would be silly. Two sillies don't make a sane, as it were. Someone should fix this, because the regulatory regime is bananas. This court case isn't doing anything to help, it's just negating the silly.

> You can't have a big ranch. That's silly.

You absolutely are allowed to do this! All you have to do is purchase the land from the people who own it.

> which is that large ranches in Wyoming are de facto illegal.

They aren't! Someone refusing to sell you something, is not the same as it being illegal.

Just like it isn't "defacto illegal" for you to purchase my house.

> your response does nothing to refute my point

it absolutely does, because it is not defacto illegal for you to buy my house, even if I refuse to sell it to you.

It is disingenuous to say that it is defacto illegal for you to buy my house, because I refuse to sell it to you.

> Two sillies don't make a sane, as it were

It is not silly for someone to refuse to sell you something.

The analogy would be like if you said "its silly for me to steal your home". And "it is also silly that it is defacto illegal for me to purchase your home".

It is not silly that you cannot buy my home, if I refuse to sell it to you. It is not defacto illegal for you to buy my home, because I refuse to sell it to you.

You're just... repeating the same argument. Maybe you're not understanding the use of the terminology?

Your point is a "de jure" argument, you're telling me what the law says (and for the record: I don't disagree). I'm making a "de facto" point: regardless of what the law says, owning large unbroken tracts of land in this area is a practical impossibility. And since the entity refusing to sell the land is the government itself (the body that makes and enforces those laws), I don't think it's at all a stretch to categorize this as de facto illegal: any action that resulted in big ranches not being impossible as a matter of practice would be by definition an act of lawmaking.

Stated slightly differently: if the government needs to change a law in order to make something possible, then that thing was "illegal" previously.

Keyword here is assumption. And it’s a pretty shit assumption if you ask me, that public land is somehow yours because you own the land next to it.

Fine the owner for having blocked access to the public land with chains. Uno reverse card.

And it seems like the judge agrees with you. Nonetheless adverse possession is a real legal principle that has been applied in situations like this (though maybe not against the federal government? I'm not the expert). It's not like this was a gonzo or weird argument. There really does seem to have been a standard convention in place that treats these checkerboard tracts as unitary properties.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com