Colorado Supreme Court rules against fisherman’s ‘standing’ in river access case | Colorado

(The Center Square) – What began as a person status in a river fishing ended with the Colorado Supreme Court ruling he doesn’t have prison status to sue to realize access to the water.

In a unanimous choice, the court docket dominated Roger Hill couldn’t ask the court docket to claim access for him to a phase of the Arkansas River. Hill argued when Colorado become a state in 1876, the riverbed was once transferred from the government to the state. Therefore, Hill contended he was once on state belongings when fishing in the river and now not trespassing on non-public belongings.

“Hill argues that, because the river was navigable at statehood, the riverbed is public land owned by the State of Colorado,” the appeals court docket declare said. “Thus, he, as a member of the public, is not trespassing by wading on the riverbed.”

After an preliminary loss in the court docket of appeals, Hill’s request for declaratory judgment was once permitted by means of that court docket in conjunction with an interpretation of the prison trespass statute. When appealed to the Supreme Court, it dominated the trespassing factor wasn’t inside the scope of the case.

Hill, 81, alleged in court docket paperwork the homeowners of a house and the land overlooking his favourite fishing hollow again and again “chased him off the property, sometimes with force. Specifically, Hill alleges that they threatened to have him arrested for trespass, threw baseball-sized rocks at him, and shot a gun at his fishing buddy.”

In writing the opinion for the court docket, Justice Melissa Hart famous the case produced loads of pages of briefs on public agree with doctrine, equivalent footing doctrine and arguments on who’s best possible situated to decide prison coverage on access to rivers.

“But those subjects are ultimately irrelevant to the issue before us,” Justice Hart wrote in the 11-page ruling. “Rather, this case requires us to answer just one question: whether Roger Hill has a legally protected interest that affords him standing to pursue his claim for a declaratory judgment ‘that a river segment was navigable for title at statehood and belongs to the State.’ He does not.”

In a temporary filed with the Colorado Supreme Court in 2022, Colorado Democrat Attorney General Phil Weiser objected to the appeals court docket choice to present Hill the potential of a declaratory judgment.

“This decision was wrong and, absent resolution by this Court, creates an unworkable process that threatens to upset long-settled arrangements governing water and river access,” Weiser wrote.

In an electronic mail to The Center Square, Chief Communications Officer Lawrence Pacheco wrote the Attorney General has no remark at the ruling.