The Wilderness Society v. Kane County

In the nineteenth century, a federal law known as Revised Statute 2477 (R.S. 2477) granted states the right to construct highways over federal public-domain lands. This statute was ultimately repealed by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA), but FLPMA continued to acknowledge “valid existing rights” that were perfected before its passage. Kane County, Utah (the county) (defendant) contained more than 1.6 million acres of federal lands, including lands designated as wilderness areas and national monuments. The county claimed it had rights-of-way over many of these lands pursuant to R.S. 2477, but these claims had never been adjudicated and were disputed by the federal government. In 2003, the county began removing federal signs and posting county signs claiming that the lands were open to off-highway-vehicle (OHV) use. Then, in 2005, the county passed an ordinance purporting to regulate OHV use on federal lands that the county claimed rights-of-way over. The Wilderness Society and other environmental groups (collectively, the Wilderness Society) (plaintiffs) sued the county seeking (1) a declaration that the county’s signage program and ordinance were preempted by federal law prohibiting OHV use in wilderness areas, wilderness-study areas, and national monuments and (2) an injunction prohibiting the county from opening federal lands to OHV use. The county still asserted its claimed rights-of-way under R.S. 2477 but did not attempt to prove them. The district court held for the Wilderness Society, and the county appealed.