Editor’s Note: This story by Frances Mize first appeared in the Valley News on Dec. 23.
A Vermont Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit brought against the town of Tunbridge regarding its authority to manage trails on private property.
The lawsuit, filed by John Echeverria and Carin Pratt, who own the 325-acre Dodge Farm, argued that because a trail — like the Orchard and Baptist Hill trails that run through their property — “is not a part of the town highway system,” it isn’t in the purview of the Selectboard.
Echeverria and Pratt moved from Washington, D.C., to Strafford more than a decade ago. They purchased Dodge Farm in 2015 and rent it to a Tunbridge resident. The pair take particular issue with mountain bikes using the trail.
Before arriving in court, the dispute had been playing out in Selectboard and Planning Commission meetings for two years. A Tunbridge Trails Committee was formed to issue guidance, but the Selectboard never acted on any recommendations.
The town filed a motion to dismiss the case in August. The motion was approved by Judge Elizabeth Mann on Monday.
The plaintiffs’ “mere fears that the town may one day seek to maintain the trails on the Dodge Farm property are not sufficient” to issue a judgment, Mann wrote.
Due to the dismissal, no ruling was made on Tunbridge’s authority, or lack thereof, to maintain trails.
“It’s just these other entities that are suggesting ideas, but the Selectboard itself, the only entity with any authority, has done nothing,” the town’s attorney, Michael Tarrant, said in an interview.
This kind of issue regarding trails and private property shows up in court frequently, Tarrant said. Parties will dispute whether or not a municipality owns a right of way, but he’s never seen it predicated on the particular argument that the plaintiffs in this case were making.
“The answer at stake is normally whether a trail is actually a public right of way. It’s very rare that you see an argument like this, which asserts that a municipality can’t maintain its property rights,” Tarrant said.
The dismissal of the lawsuit doesn’t change anything about the Planning Commission’s work, cochair Laura Ginsburg said.
“The Selectboard still has the policy that says legal trails are just for walking, and the Trails Committee are continuing to do work on trails that are town owned, like those in the town forest,” Ginsburg said. “The Planning Commission remains committed to ensuring that the public has access to public rights of way.”
Norwich-based attorneys Geoffrey Vitt and Sarah Merlo represented the couple in court.
Neither could be reached for comment.
