Two Montana property owners who claim the U.S. Forest Service cheated them by changing the terms of a decades-old public access agreement affecting their private land made their case before the Supreme Court on Nov. 30.
The case is Wilkins v. U.S., court file 21-1164, an appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which threw out their claim on procedural grounds. The case concerns the federal Quiet Title Act, which allows parties to sue the United States government in certain kinds of property disputes.
The petitioners are Larry Steven “Wil” Wilkins, a veteran diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and Jane Stanton, a widow. In 2004, Wilkins purchased property in rural Ravalli County, Montana. Stanton and her husband purchased a nearby property in 1990. Her husband died in 2013, according to the petition filed with the court….