PUBLIC LANDS: Conservationists score minor victory in Utah roads case
Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
Greenwire: Wednesday, May 4, 2016
A federal appeals court yesterday cleared the way for conservationists to pursue a lawsuit in a Utah court seeking to upend the Beehive State's claims to tens of thousands of miles of roads crisscrossing federal lands.
The order by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver was a small victory for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, which is battling Utah's bid to claim road access for its residents under a Civil War-era law.
Utah has filed roughly two dozen lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah claiming more than 14,000 rights of way totaling nearly 35,000 miles of dirt trails and routes. If fully litigated, the cases could take decades to resolve.
Utah is claiming the roads under R.S. 2477. That 1866 mining law was repealed in 1976, but Congress grandfathered any valid R.S. 2477 right that existed at the time.
As a result, Utah and counties seeking legal recognition of their R.S. 2477 claims must prove -- through historical records, photos or witness testimony -- that the roads were used as far back as the 1960s.
In 2014, SUWA and Tooele County resident Michael Abdo filed a separate lawsuit in a state court trying to nip Utah's claims in the bud. The suit claimed that Utah filed its road claims too late, since state law requires claims for property to be filed within seven years of that property having been accrued.
Thus, Utah would have needed to file its road claims by 1983, SUWA claims. It's asking the state court to block Utah from pursuing its R.S. 2477 claims at the federal level.
But federal District Judge Clark Waddoups in April 2015 said SUWA's state lawsuit cannot move forward because it could threaten the federal court's jurisdiction over those cases (Greenwire, April 10, 2015).
Yesterday, the 10th Circuit disagreed, finding that the district court lacked the authority to enjoin the state court suit.
Specifically, Waddoups' decision violated the Anti-Injunction Act, a 1793 law that generally prohibits federal courts from interfering with state legal cases, the 10th Circuit said.
"We are pleased that the Tenth Circuit has cleared the path for our state court lawsuit to proceed," said Stephen Bloch, legal director for SUWA, in a statement. "The state of Utah's unprecedented and sweeping RS 2477 litigation is part of its ongoing campaign to wrest federal public lands away from Americans," he said.
If Utah successfully claims title to the roads, it would prevent the Bureau of Land Management and other federal land managers from closing them to protect the environment. Utah officials have said the lawsuits merely aim to keep open roads that have been used by hunters, fishermen, farmers, ranchers and recreationists for decades.
Utah Assistant Attorney General Anthony Rampton, who argued the case before the 10th Circuit, said yesterday's ruling doesn't harm Utah's position.
"It's a little premature for SUWA to be claiming victory here because there are a lot of things still that must be decided," Rampton said.
Although the 10th Circuit allowed the state court lawsuit to proceed, the judges hinted that the state court would have no authority to block the federal R.S. 2477 proceedings.
"We leave open the possibility that the ... Anti-Injunction Act might allow a federal court to enjoin a state court from issuing an injunction that would prohibit prosecution of the federal-court suit," Judge Robert Bacharach, an appointee of President Obama, wrote in the opinion.
In a concurring opinion, Judge Harris Hartz, an appointee of President George W. Bush, wrote that the "law is well-settled that a state court cannot grant the injunctive relief sought by [SUWA]."
"We should presume, a very safe presumption, that no Utah court would issue the injunction sought by Appellants," he wrote.
Rampton said that language was telling.
"I don't see how SUWA feels they've won something here," he said. "They may have won the battle, but the 10th Circuit said they're going to lose the war."
But Bloch said SUWA is asking the state court for both declaratory and injunctive relief – and in that order. It will first ask the court to declare that Utah filed its R.S. 2477 lawsuits too late. Litigants would then discuss appropriate relief, he said.
“We … are in an enviable position and the state is back on its heels,” Bloch said, adding that it’s premature to wonder what will come of the state case and how the federal courts would react.
SUWA said it will continue pursuing any legal avenue available to block Utah's R.S. 2477 bids, which it and other prominent conservation groups see as a major threat to national parks, monuments and wilderness-quality landscapes.
"We look forward to proving in the state taxpayer lawsuit that the attorney general's pursuit of the Tooele County R.S. 2477 case and his use of taxpayer funds to do so is illegal and beyond his authority," said Jess Krannich, a partner with the Salt Lake City law firm Manning Curtis Bradshaw & Bednar PLLC who represented SUWA in the 10th Circuit.
