Oregon Attorney Weighs in on Adverse Possession Claim

According to Oregon Attorney, Mike Arnold (former Ammon Bundy attorney) Adverse Possession is Available Against Department of Interior in Limited Circumstances

Remember when Judge Jones said to the Bundys that adverse possession wasn’t available against the federal government? Well, that was plain wrong. It was explained in an earlier pleading, but this is an example of how the government is way better at controlling the narrative against a minority cause/opinion

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There has been a lot of confusion about adverse possession, since it’s not available against the government unless the government expressly permits it — hence the federal statute. The statute was intended to protect those homesteaders who fenced in or were otherwise using/improving Interior land without express permission. However, it’s still on the books and hasn’t been updated since the early part of last century and is still available for use by citizens.

One of the Fogbow contributors candidly retracted his previous misstatements about the availability of the statute had this to say about it the statute:

“The statute in question is old, but still on the books. Whether or not the statute actually establishes a right to adverse possession, or if it’s a waiver of sovereign immunity that covers limited circumstances, or if it just establishes something akin to adverse possession is more a matter of semantics than anything else. For all intents and purposes, the effect is the same.

“That said, since the statute requires good faith, a legitimate claim to land, or occupation under color of title, I’d say that it’s unlikely that there are more than a handful of potential cases left where anyone is likely to successfully claim land under this statute. I’m also not sure that the statute is applicable to Malheur even in principle – but I’ll check that a bit later.

“It’s a poorly-punctuated statute, but after re-reading it both in the US Code and in the two relevant statutes-at-large volumes, I have to agree that your interpretation is probably right, and mine probably wrong. The 1901 probably does only apply to the situation in (b) where there are no improvements or cultivation. So while there are many, many reasons that no adverse possession claim to the refuge would succeed, particularly under the circumstances of the occupation, failure to use a time machine is not one of them.”

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You see folks, this is what civil discourse is about.  Instead of calling dissenters names, try engaging them or else you are the “sheeple” following each other into irrelevance.  You should be way more than 3% in the modern social media world. Remember, you aren’t trying to change each other’s minds when arguing. You are trying to impress the silent majority of onlookers whose minds can be changed.  For every commenter or “like” we get thousands of other views of posts and comments. 

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This is just an excerpt.  Real the whole article.

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