Green Lake Road trial scheduled for middle of August

Gunnison County remains an involuntary plaintiff

by Katherine Nettles

A longstanding lawsuit over a road closure above Lake Irwin may soon be settled as a six-day trial has been scheduled for August 17, and a recent ruling in Gunnison County District Court has settled that Gunnison County remains a part of the dispute. The county has also filed a new motion requesting summary judgment on a key issue to bypass the main reason for a trial, and a ruling on that is pending.

The Lake Irwin Coalition (LIC) first filed a complaint against private landowner Jonathan Whitacre (JW) Smith in 2019.  Smith had put up a gate blocking the road that crosses his property in 2016. The road leads to Green Lake between Ruby and Owen peaks, and Smith alleged that there was an increase in trespassing on his property from the road and along Scarps Ridge hiking trail. Other local property owners formed the LIC coalition and filed a lawsuit arguing the action was illegal and named both Gunnison County and the U.S. Forest Service as involuntary plaintiffs to the lawsuit in 2019. The county and the LIC assert that Green Lake Road is a public road and that Lake Irwin property owners have a right to use it.

The litigation has lasted more than seven years, and includes federal district court rulings related to a complicated set of dueling motions for summary judgements. One such motion was from Gunnison County asking that the road be recognized as belonging to the U.S. Forest Service, but that motion was dismissed and the USFS was thereby dismissed from the case in 2022.

Smith filed a motion to also dismiss Gunnison County and its claims from the case. 

In an order filed last month on June 21, Gunnison County District Judge Kellie Starritt ruled that the county had standing, and it has “suffered an injury” because Smith has interfered with the public’s right to use the road. She stated that the county would be obligated to maintain the road if it were found by the court to be a county road, and that if it were found not to be a county road the county would be impacted by that finding as well. “It does not matter, as Smith argues, that the county did not include Green Lake Road in its county road system,” wrote Starritt. “That issue goes to the merits of the county’s claims, not the county’s standing to bring them. For these reasons, the county has standing in this matter.”

In the meantime, Gunnison County filed a motion in May asking the court to issue summary judgment on whether the road is public, which would resolve a large part of the issue and the reason the county is involved in the lawsuit.

A trial date for the case has been set for August 17, unless the court issues a summary judgment in the meantime. “It is our hope that the court grants this motion, as it will greatly reduce the need for a trial on all issues in the case,” commented Gunnison County attorney Matthew Hoyt.