https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/26/busi ... ccess.html

One of the arguments the land owner makes is that while the person never stepped foot on his land simply going over his land was enough to sue him for 8 million dollars.

Apparently Wyoming provides landowners unlimited airspace and depth to their property. It's a slippery slope argument I admit, but what happens when a land owner says that the planes flying over his ranch are scaring the cows or just says he doesn't like the sounds and that they are on his property?

Anyway, I thought this might be of interest.

Problem meet solution https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yvyFIr1j4U

This goes too far. Big money buys a lot of pull in many parts of Wyoming.
Corruption is deep rooted and alive and well in this free state.

Just an asshole bully with more money than you…..

Access to the river that was on three sides of the peninsula ranch I grew up on was 1.5 miles on our private county specs road/driveway. We built county roads. My granddad and dad allowed access to the river for fifty years. Fishermen kept the two gravel bars cleaned up and had trash barrels available. The boy scouts did a camp out there every year and E.A. Martin Caterpillar Dealership did a fish fry every year. There were no public access sites on the James River in the area. Now there is a public access site a couple miles upriver and downriver. O'Riley Auto Parts bought the ranch and developed a wildlife refuge.

The story reads like the "olive farm" in CA anout 10-15 years ago that threatened lawsuits against any one who flew near the property. Just the threat of litigation really raised the ante over what the local balloonists, CFIs, light schools, or even people who just had a hangar at the nearby airport could afford. After a couple years of that a local attorney offered to join in probono. I recall he filed for access to the property as a discovery step. The counter attack worked and suddenly the family that bought the olive farm dropped their threats.

Any recent changes of ownership of this place?

Good luck. Does your liability policy cover sound complaints?

PapernScissors wrote:The story reads like the "olive farm" in CA anout 10-15 years ago that threatened lawsuits against any one who flew near the property. Just the threat of litigation really raised the ante over what the local balloonists, CFIs, light schools, or even people who just had a hangar at the nearby airport could afford. After a couple years of that a local attorney offered to join in probono. I recall he filed for access to the property as a discovery step. The counter attack worked and suddenly the family that bought the olive farm dropped their threats.

Any recent changes of ownership of this place?

Good luck. Does your liability policy cover sound complaints?

US law is quite clear, owners of land do NOT own the column of air above that property. An owner can't just declare that he "owns" a column of air above his property.

That said, anyone can sue in civil court for almost anything these days, and it's on the person or entity named in the suit to defend themselves. Don't respond, because it's nonsense? You may wind up with a huge bill in the mail.

So, yes, the best course of action is to find an attorney who flies, and have him or her fly over this ranch.... Problem is, it'd have to be a lawyer who's not too busy, or one with an axe to grind.

MTV

Early CAA crafted air regulation that simply said states cannot regulate air commerce (and still that way today), that was a federal function. Airplanes move state to state and having states make up their own rules can hinder growth.

I know Utah just added min insurance requirements but this is BS too because If I land there, no federal regulation says I need to show my insurance policy.

Problem meet solution https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yvyFIr1j4U

While promising, this is very much a work in progress, not a universally implemented solution. So much depends on all parties to the negotiations for access being reasonable and accommodating. Those attributes are in shorter supply these days than at any other time in my memory. I laud the folks making good faith efforts to resolve this issue one access point at a time, but the number of professional a**holes out there suggests there will forever remain quadrants of public land that are inaccessible.

I'm fortunate in that I live in an area where access to public land is less of a problem. Part of that has been facilitated by "Recreational Use Statutes" in the state that indemnify private landowners from liability for injury or harm to members of the public that access that private land without charge. I use public land every day and the abundance of it locally is one of the reasons I picked this spot for retirement. Access to that land makes my life richer and more satisfying, so I try my best to be a responsible user of that land.

PapernScissors wrote:The story reads like the "olive farm" in CA anout 10-15 years ago that threatened lawsuits against any one who flew near the property. Just the threat of litigation really raised the ante over what the local balloonists, CFIs, light schools, or even people who just had a hangar at the nearby airport could afford. After a couple years of that a local attorney offered to join in probono. I recall he filed for access to the property as a discovery step. The counter attack worked and suddenly the family that bought the olive farm dropped their threats.

Any recent changes of ownership of this place?

Good luck. Does your liability policy cover sound complaints?

That was out in the desert near Bermuda dunes / thermal if it’s the one I was thinking, the people of that compound were into some…odd things as I recall

Folks should just ignore these types, most all of them arnt going to do anything because 99.9% of the are wackadoodles and don’t want the attention they’d get if they actually went to court, also they don’t own the sky

As anyone every successfully sued a pilot for something like this?

Every few years I read of one of these stories, but I don’t recall hearing of a pilot or airline or anything actually getting hit with fines or lawsuits that went anywhere

Crop dusters are good 500' horizontally and no vertical limit. But I cautioned pilots not to get into the situation where the lady of the house can say, "he went right over the top."

"Crop dusters are good 500' horizontally and no vertical limit."
Back pack powered paraplanes do not even have that , with out looking it up , the rags read something like - operated so as not to endanger anyone or property.

Essentials like food and oil get special consideration.

NineThreeKilo wrote:

As anyone every successfully sued a pilot for something like this?

Short answer : Yes. You'll likely see that noise complaints are excluded from your liability policy. The olive grove crowd intimidated several people (if AOPA and other reports are true) by merely having deep pockets. "Stop the Noise" is just one group to raise expensive to defend complaints. Others are local governments. Can any of us spell "Santa Monica"? Here are some examples.

https://www.nonoise.org/news/law.htm

PapernScissors wrote:

NineThreeKilo wrote:

As anyone every successfully sued a pilot for something like this?

Short answer : Yes. You'll likely see that noise complaints are excluded from your liability policy. The olive grove crowd intimidated several people (if AOPA and other reports are true) by merely having deep pockets. "Stop the Noise" is just one group to raise expensive to defend complaints. Others are local governments. Can any of us spell "Santa Monica"? Here are some examples.

https://www.nonoise.org/news/law.htm

I don’t see any suits coming out of Wyoming which supports the local feelings of “liberalism moving to the state along with its new wealthy landowner as a bad thing”.

Again, the problem is, they don’t have to win a lawsuit. The courts are full of nonsense lawsuits that will never go anywhere. But they all cost something to defend against.

That intimidation is what I’m betting these people are counting on.

MTV

PapernScissors wrote:

NineThreeKilo wrote:

As anyone every successfully sued a pilot for something like this?

Short answer : Yes. You'll likely see that noise complaints are excluded from your liability policy. The olive grove crowd intimidated several people (if AOPA and other reports are true) by merely having deep pockets. "Stop the Noise" is just one group to raise expensive to defend complaints. Others are local governments. Can any of us spell "Santa Monica"? Here are some examples.

https://www.nonoise.org/news/law.htm

Didn’t read all of them, but the one relevant one that was up top, survey plane and a angry Karen, Karen lost

I don’t recall hearing of any of these any noise police people succeeding in doing anything but….well…making noise when it comes to attacking individuals

There was a woman in CA as I recall who tried to make a big mess for a drop zone, swiftly got her “case” laughed out of court, drop zone sued and won for harassment or something

I mean just on jurisdictional issues alone these cases are losers front to start

NineThreeKilo wrote:

PapernScissors wrote:

NineThreeKilo wrote:

As anyone every successfully sued a pilot for something like this?

Short answer : Yes. You'll likely see that noise complaints are excluded from your liability policy. The olive grove crowd intimidated several people (if AOPA and other reports are true) by merely having deep pockets. "Stop the Noise" is just one group to raise expensive to defend complaints. Others are local governments. Can any of us spell "Santa Monica"? Here are some examples.

https://www.nonoise.org/news/law.htm

Didn’t read all of them, but the one relevant one that was up top, survey plane and a angry Karen, Karen lost

I don’t recall hearing of any of these any noise police people succeeding in doing anything but….well…making noise when it comes to attacking individuals

There was a woman in CA as I recall who tried to make a big mess for a drop zone, swiftly got her “case” laughed out of court, drop zone sued and won for harassment or something

I mean just on jurisdictional issues alone these cases are losers front to start

Do some reading on Santa Monica city airport. The city wanted to be rid of the airport, to build condos, or??? Noise was their answer. They placed noise monitors near the end of the runway, and started fining “noisy” airplanes. Learjet, and a fish spotter 185 were kings of that heap.

The City prohibited touch and go landings on weekends. Lots of training there at the time….squeeze. I took my Commercial checkride there one Sunday. Examiner (an FAA Inspector) told me to ask the tower for three landings and takeoffs before we depart the area. I told him those are prohibited on weekends. His response: “Ask the Tower”. I did. ATC replied “Nxx. The City of Santa Monica prohibits multiple landings and takeoffs at Santa Monica on weekends. Cleared for takeoff, runway 21, plan left traffic for multiple landings.”

The city jerked aviators around for years trying to make life miserable, to run them off.

Eventually, AOPA leaned hard on the FAA to enforce the AIP contract that the city signed to receive millions of dollars in AIP maintenance funds over the years.

That stopped some of the static, but now the City is waiting till that contract expires to close the airport.

So, yes, noise has been used as a tool to restrict aviation.

MTV

mtv wrote:

NineThreeKilo wrote:

PapernScissors wrote:

NineThreeKilo wrote:

As anyone every successfully sued a pilot for something like this?

Short answer : Yes. You'll likely see that noise complaints are excluded from your liability policy. The olive grove crowd intimidated several people (if AOPA and other reports are true) by merely having deep pockets. "Stop the Noise" is just one group to raise expensive to defend complaints. Others are local governments. Can any of us spell "Santa Monica"? Here are some examples.

https://www.nonoise.org/news/law.htm

Didn’t read all of them, but the one relevant one that was up top, survey plane and a angry Karen, Karen lost

I don’t recall hearing of any of these any noise police people succeeding in doing anything but….well…making noise when it comes to attacking individuals

There was a woman in CA as I recall who tried to make a big mess for a drop zone, swiftly got her “case” laughed out of court, drop zone sued and won for harassment or something

I mean just on jurisdictional issues alone these cases are losers front to start

Do some reading on Santa Monica city airport. The city wanted to be rid of the airport, to build condos, or??? Noise was their answer. They placed noise monitors near the end of the runway, and started fining “noisy” airplanes. Learjet, and a fish spotter 185 were kings of that heap.

The City prohibited touch and go landings on weekends. Lots of training there at the time….squeeze. I took my Commercial checkride there one Sunday. Examiner (an FAA Inspector) told me to ask the tower for three landings and takeoffs before we depart the area. I told him those are prohibited on weekends. His response: “Ask the Tower”. I did. ATC replied “Nxx. The City of Santa Monica prohibits multiple landings and takeoffs at Santa Monica on weekends. Cleared for takeoff, runway 21, plan left traffic for multiple landings.”

The city jerked aviators around for years trying to make life miserable, to run them off.

Eventually, AOPA leaned hard on the FAA to enforce the AIP contract that the city signed to receive millions of dollars in AIP maintenance funds over the years.

That stopped some of the static, but now the City is waiting till that contract expires to close the airport.

So, yes, noise has been used as a tool to restrict aviation.

MTV

I know about that one, think the going after the airports ones have a lot more nuance, between developers and crooked politicians, not wanting a “industrial” looking airport near someone’s condo, etc

Now the shut down the airport types, it doesn’t matter what you do, you will never appease them until the airport/strip is gone, so I don’t really bother trying to play nice, I just ignore them like a petulant child

I’ll be a good neighbor when it comes to wildlife refuges or not flying over a old Monastery or something

But as far as these busy bodies going after airmen and operators, I don’t recall any ever getting their frivolous cases off the ground, the few that got to a court room were booted out faster than they got in, they are just hot air, so props full forward

I was sued once as a crop duster about drift and not airspace. The plaintiff was a squater on my customer's ranch and did not end up paying his lawyer so the suit was thrown out of court. The state tested the plaintiff's tomatoes for 2-4-5 T (clean and legal Agent Orange) and found .008 parts per million. The state scientist said I would have to be fined $2,500 for drift because the label says, "Avoid drift." He also said that I could use his test in court to prove that no damage could have been done to crops or human health by that amount of drift. The whole point of writing confusing laws is so that lawyers have plenty of work. Plaintiff hired a lawyer he didn't pay. I had state required drift insurance so a lawyer represented me and another lawyer represented the Thompson Hayward Chemical Co. The court costs were paid by insurance. Win, win in the legal world. Thompson Hayward did go out of business and we lost 2-4-5 T for defoliation because of the unprocessed 2-4-5 T the Army bought for Vietnam.

Pop media coverage of this same case: