Originally Posted By: Dogfish
In my opinion, I would suspect that the State settles this case with the Wallace's providing a new access road.

I entirely understand the need for the Wallace's to protect their equipment and crew, as well as protecting themselves from liability to misuse of the easement by others, but if they knowingly ignore an easement granted to another party and destroy it, they become liable for damages. While they owned the underlying land, the easement was property of the WDFW.

I hope that all that happens is that they build an additional access route, and the matter is considered closed.

Anyway, all of the documentation presented shows an intent to grant an easement, and then someone destroyed it. It will either be settled in court, or out of court, but it looks like that will happen relatively soon.


Had the destruction been inadvertent or immediately followed by established of new access/parking I would concur. However, it would seem that the owners intentionally destroyed the access road, did not immediately provide another means of access and, in fact, after years of preventing legal access (there was an Easement properly recorded with the County) a simple remedy of replacing the destroyed road and parking would not seem sufficient.

Doesn't the lost opportunity have a value?

And where is the dis-incentive for others?

No, got to be more than "O'K, you caught me. I'll fix it now."
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