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Forest Service wins 8 acres in 16-year property dispute

Former Durango man believed he bought the property
Janowiak

The U.S. Forest Service recently won about eight acres of land north of Durango and a small cash award in a property case against a former Durango man, which may end a 16-year disagreement.

“It’s really important whenever somebody comes along and lays claim that we seriously defend ownership ... because if we don’t, we are setting ourselves up for repeated cases of people taking something that isn’t theirs,” said Columbine District Ranger Matt Janowiak.

The U.S. Forest Service was awarded about 7.85 acres and about $4,600 to cover damages to the property, the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled this month.

LaVerne St. Clair, who died in December, believed he bought the property in question as part of a larger purchase in 1984, according to court documents.

The U.S. Forest Service started investigating St. Clair’s possible encroachment on federal property in 2000 after he installed fence posts along the perimeter of the property. He had also cleared vegetation on the north, west and southern borders of the property, according to a news release. A neighbor alerted the Forest Service to the problem.

The Forest Service plans to use the cash to reseed the property and fight noxious weeds, Janowiak said.

“It’s going to be kind of light touch approach to restoration,” he said.

The government’s case relied, in part, on a 1877 survey of the property by John Fahringer that was discarded in 1891 by a government agency because the markers used in the survey couldn’t be found, according to the 10th Circuit’s opinion. Another survey was done, but the court did not rely on it.

“Of the eight monuments he should have provided around this section there was one,” said Earl Rhodes, the attorney who handled St. Clair’s appeal.

The appeal’s court upheld an earlier decision based on Fahringer’s survey.

“The Fahringer plat, flawed and troublesome though it may be, was the sole and controlling plat,” the earlier district court ruled.

An older private property claim was for 160 acres, but the disputed section would have made the parcel 167.85 acres.

If the 7.85 acres in question was private property, it would have inflated the size of the original claim, Janowiak said.

LaVerne St. Clair’s widow, Beverly St. Clair, has not decided whether to appeal the decision, Rhodes said.

The case would be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It seems unlikely they would have any interest in this matter,” Rhodes said.

The lawsuit started in 2011, and a Colorado District judge ruled against St. Clair in 2015. He appealed shortly afterward.

“He thought this fight with the United States of America was very important,” Rhodes said.

mshinn@durangoherald.com

Appeals Court decision (PDF)



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