Law Commons^™

Road Rage And R.S. 2477: Judicial And Administrative Responsibility For Resolving Road Claims On Public Land, Bret C. Birdsong

Scholarly Works

The past decade has seen the D-4 Caterpillar bulldozer become a significant tool for those seeking to challenge federal land management agencies' authority to protect resources federal lands by reducing access. The power of the bulldozer is both symbolic and pragmatic. It cuts an iconographic image of local officials standing up against federal control over vast areas of land in the rural west. But it also, in many cases, provokes litigation, allowing claims to property rights to receive judicial attention that might otherwise evade them.

Underlying each of these protagonist's legal positions, if not their motivations, is a right-of-way grant …