Lawyer: Land dispute critics 'dumb'

People who are upset over a controversial land dispute in Boulder, in which a judge awarded a former judge a significant portion of a neighbor's valuable parcel of residential property, are "dumb, short-sighted, lacking in perspective or just plain wrong," according to the president of the Boulder County Bar Association.

"I wanted to step up front and say to the world, lawyers are not bad people and to make the assumption that a lawyer and a judge just made up their minds to steal someone else's property without any evidence of that whatsoever is just plain out of bounds," Sonny Flowers wrote a column in a bar association newsletter.

But he said his explanations would have no effect on opinion.

"To think that anything I say will be perceived as other than self-serving crap is not to think at all," he wrote.

Judge James Klein

The case involves retired Judge Richard McLean and his wife Edith Stevens, who sued the owners of the lot next door to their pricy Boulder residence under the little-known "adverse possession" state law. They claimed they had used and maintained the property for 25 years, and another judge in the state court system in Boulder, Judge James Klein, granted them ownership of 34 percent of one of the two lots owned by Don and Susie Kirlin.

Flowers noted that the case has left "some fine people" with "reputations impugned."

"A judge who has given his life and career to public service has been demonized," he said. But he noted he wasn't trying to change minds.

"I am writing this, not to persuade you of the rightness or wrongness of a position but more simply because I'm mad," he wrote.

"Who would believe me if I said that I've known Judge McLean for a lot of years, not socially but professionally, and have observed his integrity, his morality, his intent to do justice? … In a world where I can find a bad lawyer joke without looking, I can discover how badly we are perceived without thinking," he wrote.

The judge responded to a question about the column from the Boulder Daily Camera with a comment that the newsletter column was a private communication to other lawyers, and he declined to discuss it.

"So now the Boulder bar president is mad over criticism of lawyers in the adverse possession case," a Camera reader, Rich Larson, noted. "What he does not consider is that most do not criticize the legal aspects, but do criticize the moral integrity of this particular adverse possession. And you don't need a law degree to find this adverse action offensive."

He continued, "I did attend the protest on what's left of the Kirin's (sic) property. Therefore, according to the supporting letters for Stevens/McLean, I am a hateful person, unfair to judge such fine community leaders, member of a lynching party, among other undesirable traits. These authors are the experts on the thoughts and motives of others."

He had a suggestion to avoid future cases.

"If you want to use another's property, ask for permission… Don't forget that this was valuable land with a legal boundary definition, and it would have been easy to contact the owners."

The Camera also noted that the case wasn't the first time a former Boulder judge used the law to win land from a neighbor.

"Earlier this year (2007), the secretary of the Indian Peaks chapter of the Sierra Club and his wife lost about 100 square feet of their property to Marsha Yeager, a former judge, and her husband, John Yeager," the newspaper reported.

That case involved Kirk Cunningham and his wife, Cosima-Krueger-Cunningham, who were concerned about property lines, and began a process to have them verified. Their neighbors, the Yeagers, instead argued that since they had "taken the responsibility" for a rock wall, it and the land on which the wall sits should belong to them. The court battle took five years, and they won in the 2007 conclusion.

"The principal lesson for the public in all this is, in a place like Boulder where property values are skyrocketing, you need to make sure you know where your property lines are and keep your neighbors on notice – preferably with legal help," Cunningham told the paper.

The Kirlins ended up losing about one-third of one of their parcels of land – they had two – to McLean and Stevens. They argued they crossed the Kirlins' property nearly every day to access their own land and said they cut weeds and put a woodpile on it.

There apparently have been some negotiations between the parties in the case, but those negotiations prior to the trial were unsuccessful, and even now the two sides have argued about who "offered" to settle for a five-foot strip of land.

"We tried to resolve this case before we filed suit, and we made numerous efforts to settle the case before trial," Stevens said. "We even made an offer to Mr. and Mrs. Kirlin just a day or so before the trial. The Kirlins decided not to accept the offer, and that meant we went to trial."

"We thought we made very generous offers, and everything we offered they declined," Susie Kirlin has said.

The dispute already has been enshrined in Boulder lore by Don Wrege, a Boulder singer and songwriter, who wrote a song titled, "Edie and Dick (The Grinch Theme).

Stevens also told National Public Radio she and her husband are feeling "pretty beleaguered" by the fierce public opposition to the couple's case, which overcame testimony from the Kirlins that they paid taxes of about $16,000 a year, plus $65 a month homeowner association dues, to keep current on the undeveloped land.

Previous stories:

Judge who took neighbor's land 'beleaguered'

Retired judge: This land is my land