Brigadier General Billy Don Farris served in the U.S. Army for over 30 years, earning a Purple Heart for his service in Iraq. When he retired from the Army, he bought an 80-acre farm in Gloucester County, Virginia, where he could enjoy the area’s rich history and the peace of the natural world alongside his family.
Unfortunately, the peace General Farris hoped to enjoy is marred by frequent trespassers who refuse to respect his private property, freely and frequently entering his woods with packs of dogs to hunt. And the local government condones it. Sheriff Darrell Warren and his deputies have refused to provide any assistance to property owners like General Farris, claiming that the hunters have a right to invade others’ properties under a Virginia “right-to-retrieve” law that allows brief entry onto private property to retrieve wandering hunting dogs. However, the sheriff and his deputies’ interpretation ignores what Virginia’s courts, Attorney General, and Department of Wildlife Resources have all stated plainly: the “right-to-retrieve” law may decriminalize certain types of trespass, but it also intentionally preserves the landowner’ right to pursue all civil remedies. As a result, the sheriff’s policy of granting hunters a new affirmative right to access private property like General Farris’s home finds no footing in state law.
The sheriff’s policy also violates the Constitution. As the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, your rights to use your own property and to refuse trespassers access to it cannot be overridden by a third party. If the government wants to take control of your property and dictate whom you allow on it and whom you’re permitted to exclude from it, then the Constitution demands it pay you just compensation for that taking.
After conversations with the sheriff led to no resolution, General Farris turned to the courts. Represented at no cost by Pacific Legal Foundation, he filed a federal lawsuit to vindicate his right to exclude trespassers from his home. His lawsuit aims to strengthen property rights for other Virginians and for property owners across the country.
Photograph courtesy of General Farris.
What’s At Stake?
- The government cannot create policies that erase your constitutional rights.
- When local law enforcement officers wrongly interpret legislation and enforce policies against you that deprive you of your property without compensation, the Constitution guarantees you the right to challenge that abuse in court.
- Under the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court precedent, your rights to use your own property and to refuse trespassers access to it cannot be overridden by a third party. If the government wants to take control of your property and dictate whom you allow on or exclude from it, then the Fifth Amendment requires the government to end the taking or pay you just compensation.
