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Michigan Hunters Appeal Federal Dismissal in Case Challenging DNR Officer’s Entry Onto Private Property
https://olcplc.com/public/media?1780880428
Newaygo County residents Dennis and Daynelle Vanderlaan have appealed a federal district court decision dismissing their civil-rights lawsuit against Michigan Department of Natural Resources Conservation Officer Cameron Wright.The case and appeal arises from an encounter on the opening day of Michigan’s 2025 firearm deer season. The Vanderlaans were lawfully hunting from an enclosed blind located on their own private property in Newaygo County when Officer Wright entered the property, approached the blind, questioned them regarding alleged hunting-related misconduct, and ultimately stated that he intended to prepare a report for the prosecutor even after stating they did nothing wrong.
Although the district court dismissed the federal constitutional claims on qualified-immunity grounds, the appeal asks whether government officers may enter private hunting land, confront citizens engaged in lawful activity, and initiate an investigative detention based upon a neighbor complaint without violating clearly established constitutional protections. The district court separately declined to decide the Vanderlaans’ state-law trespass claim.
According to the Vanderlaans’ attorney, the appeal is not merely about a single encounter in a hunting blind. The challenge contends that Officer Wright's actions violated basic constitutional minimums that exist to protect ordinary citizens from arbitrary governmental intrusion, and that those protections have not been adequately enforced by either federal or state courts.
“This appeal concerns what happened after a conservation officer entered private property,” said attorney Philip L. Ellison of Outside Legal Counsel PLC, counsel for the Vanderlaans. “The parallel Michigan constitutional case asks a more fundamental question: whether the government should be permitted to enter that property in the first place without a warrant.”
The federal appeal proceeds alongside a separate action pending in the Michigan Court of Claims that presents an even broader constitutional question. In that case, the Vanderlaans challenge the continued application of the federal “open fields” doctrine under Article I, Section 11 of the Michigan Constitution. The state-court lawsuit seeks a declaration that Michigan’s Constitution provides greater protection for privately owned land than federal law and prohibits conservation officers from entering private hunting property without a warrant, consent, or recognized exception to the warrant requirement.
The case also challenges the notion that privately owned hunting property should receive diminished constitutional protection simply because it is located outside the curtilage of a residence.
“For generations, the open-fields doctrine has treated vast areas of privately owned land as if they exist in a constitutional twilight zone,” Ellison said. “But private property is private property. The fact that a citizen is hunting, farming, or recreating on rural land does not mean the Constitution stops at the property line.“
According to the Vanderlaans, they possessed valid hunting licenses, were complying with Michigan hunting regulations, and were ultimately told during the encounter that they were “doing everything right.” They nevertheless contend that the encounter escalated into an investigative detention unsupported by sufficient legal justification.
“Open fields should not mean open season on constitutional rights,” Ellison said. “The government unquestionably has authority to regulate hunting and enforce game laws. The question presented here is whether those enforcement powers carry constitutional limits when officers enter private land and confront citizens engaged in lawful conduct.”
The appeal will be heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, Ohio.
About Outside Legal Counsel PLC
Outside Legal Counsel PLC is a Michigan-based law firm concentrating on constitutional litigation, civil rights, property rights, government accountability, and appellate advocacy. The firm has litigated matters involving the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments in state and federal courts, including before the United States Supreme Court.
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