Vermont Supreme Court affirms right of towns to maintain legal trails on private property

By Tom Ayres

Senior Staff Writer

The Vermont Supreme Court has affirmed the authority of municipalities throughout the state to maintain trails that traverse private property.

The court’s Feb. 20 ruling, which also assures continued public access to trails for purposes such as hiking, running, skiing, bicycling, and snowmobiling, upholds a Windsor County Superior Court ruling from last July that rejected the argument of two Tunbridge landowners that a 1986 change in Vermont state statute had stripped towns of their right to maintain “legal trails” with rights-of-way easements.

Two legal trails maintained by the town of Tunbridge cross the 325acre Dodge Farm property owned by John Echeverria and Carin Pratt. Legal wrangling between the town and the pair of landowners commenced in 2020, following a dispute over bicycle access, after which Echeverria and Pratt ceased maintaining the trails, leaving them overgrown and impassable. The ruling by the state’s highest court protects public access to more than 500 miles of legal trails throughout Vermont.

Had the court not ruled in favor of Tunbridge town officials in the long-standing dispute, it could have had a profound effect on the right to public access to legal trails across the state. Of particular note among Upper Valley communities, officials in Pomfret had long kept a steady eye on the Tunbridge trails case as it moved through the legal system. The Pomfret Selectboard advocated for legislation, Act 66, passed by Vermont lawmakers last year, that sought to clarify state law governing towns’ authority to maintain legal trails within their borders. Last July, a Windsor Superior Court judge ruled in favor of Tunbridge in the trails case. Echeverria and Pratt subsequently appealed that judgment to the Vermont Supreme Court.

And last September, Pomfret Selectboard chair Benjamin Brickner, acting on behalf of the town, filed an amicus brief before the high court, supporting Tunbridge’s position in the legal trails case. Pomfret was the only town in the state to file an amicus brief with the court regarding the trails issue. The municipality was joined in its support for Tunbridge’s case by amicus filings by both the Vermont League of Cities and Towns and by Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark in tandem with Solicitor General Jonathan Rose.

In the nine-page decision issued by the Vermont Supreme Court last month, the judges concluded that because legal trails are public rights-ofway, the right to use them inherently includes the right to maintain them to ensure public access.

“We conclude that because the Town trails are public rights-of-way under the controlling statute, the Town has the authority to maintain them to ensure the public’s access to the trails for the purpose intended,” Vermont Supreme Court Justice William Cohen wrote. He added that “as the [Superior Court] noted, it would defeat the purpose of a public easement if towns lacked the authority to maintain or repair trails because a landowner could control the public’s use of the easement by refusing to conduct any repair or maintenance. This reading of the statute would essentially make the system of public trails ineffective and superfluous.”

Reacting to the decision in a text message to the Standard, Pomfret Selectboard chair Brickner was laudatory.

“Pomfret submitted a brief to the court as an amicus — a friend of the court — supporting Tunbridge, and we are pleased that a unanimous Supreme Court agreed with our position,” Brickner wrote. “As a town that has maintained more than five miles of legal trails for over twenty years without issue, Pomfret had a real stake in the outcome. This was Tunbridge’s fight, but the decision benefits every Vermont town that maintains these rights-of-way for the public good.”

Under Vermont state law, Echeverria and Pratt have two weeks — until Friday, March 6 — to file a motion for reargument of the Tunbridge trails case before the state Supreme Court.

The Tunbridge landowners could not be reached for comment this week.