Checkmate: Corner Crossing and Opening Up Public Land in the United States

By: Ryan M. Jones

PDF: Checkmate: Corner Crossing

In the United States, there are millions of acres of publicly owned land that are currently inaccessible because they are surrounded by privately owned land. This unique phenomenon is primarily the outgrowth of a nineteenth century land disbursement policy aimed at promoting westward expansion. In the twenty-first century, however, as outdoor recreation continues to gain popularity and technology has led to the precise mapping of the country, the realization that there are vast swathes of inaccessible public land has appeared in headlines of some of the most prominent newspapers. For this novel problem, recently decided in the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, there appears to be two competing solutions: a holding in favor of landowners’ right to exclude, thus perpetuating the public’s exclusion from public land, or one that seemingly violates private landowners’ rights and authorizes a legal trespass over private land in order to access public land.

This Note looks to foreign conceptions of property to offer a solution to a uniquely American problem. Likewise, US common law applied to foreign jurisdictions may concretize the rights of recreationalists and private landowners alike, creating a détente in the best interests of all parties. In all, this Note advocates for a creative solution that preserves the rights of private landowners while promoting the ability of the public to recreate on public land both in the United States and abroad.