Ok, along with everyone else in Boulder not named Richard McLean or Edith Stevens, I think the taking of the Kirlin's land is both legally indefensible and morally repugnant. But this post is not to discuss what scumbags McLean & Stevens are as there are lots of other posts to that effect.
Instead I would like to bring up what I think is a giant contradiction in Judge Klein's order.
In 25 c the Judge finds "The woodpile in the northwest corner of lot 50 is very distinctive and is very visible from Hardscrabble drive, and is the retaining wall that extends to and beyond the left-most ponderosa pine on lot 50."
In 25 d the Judge finds "Most distinctive is the relatively flat nature of lot 50 with the exception of the "cut out" or "hollowed out" almost half moon portion of land bordered by Edie's path on the left and held back by the retaining wall. This observation is clearly visible from the street."
Ok, so to the Judge this use by McLean & Stevens the scumbags was clearly visible from the street. And yet he discounts the testimony of Rick Burman and Ben Hunsinger because they only viewed the property from the street and "there may be some things that can not be seen from the street."
Ok, which is it. Are these items clearly visible from the street or not? If they are, then Burman's and Hunsinger's testimony is very credible. If they aren't, then the Judge is not credible. But I don't see how the Judge's observations allow finding the testimony of Burman and Hunsinger to be discounted.
But it doesn't end there. I'm not a lawyer but I do know that hearsay testimony is almost never allowed in court with very rare exceptions. And yet we have in the Judge's order:
In 13 the Judge lists "...Ms. Mitchell stated that she always believed that Plaintiff's were on their own property, and that all the neighbors thought the disputed property was in fact Plaintiff's property."
Judge Klein did got to law school - didn't he?
Finally, there is one other point that strikes me as weird about this. In many neighborhoods where there are no fences between houses we consistently use paths that go through our neighbors yards. In most cases we're not even sure where the line is. We're not building on each other's lots, were just walking on them (and probably mowing the grass on each other's lots).
If walking a path consistently through a neighbor's yard is sufficient, then we all have small claims on each other. Because that is the main thing here - they walked on part of their neighbor's lot. Is cutting through a neighbor's yard occupancy? Or is it just making use of a shortcut?
