By SYLVIA LOBATO
SAN LUIS — William Bruce Harrison, owner of Cielo Vista Ranch, has filed an appeal in U.S. District Court, seeking to set aside a June 2002 ruling that gave land grant heirs access rights to the vast mountain tract.
The matter will be heard at the Ralph Carr Judicial Building in Denver at 9 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 5 and land grant heirs are encouraged to attend.
Harrison, heir to one of Texas’ original oil fortunes, purchased the storied 83,000-acre "Taylor" ranch in the San Luis Valley, according to Costilla County property records.
Soon afterwards, he sent a form letter to some persons holding rights to use the land and reportedly agreed to some stipulations outlined in a letter from attorney Aaron Boschee regarding that letter, but he continued with a threatened appeal.
The suit, filed more than 30 years ago by rancher Apolinar Rael, is the longest civil suit in the history of Colorado and it hasn’t ended.
In his form letter, Harrison offered to buy land rights for $300 each.
More than 100 persons, many of whom have fought for more than 40 years to regain rights to lands once granted by treaty to their forefathers, crowded a church hall at San Luis in mid-August to hear more about the situation and have questions answered by Land Rights Council (LRC) Chair Shirley Romero-Otero and attorney Jerome DeHerrera, a member of the legal team.
All of the attorneys have worked pro bono, essentially for free, since the original lawsuit was filed by Rael in 1981.
Part of a land grant dating to the 1800s, the ranch has been owned by New Bern, N.C. lumber baron Jack T. Taylor, Enron executive Lou Pai and a group of Texas investors who named it Cielo Vista.
The latter group sold the ranch to Harrison for an estimated $105 million.
Harrison recently told a group of LRC representatives and attorneys that he bought the land because “I need a place to play.”
He inherited great wealth at age 17, but couldn’t claim it until he was 30 — in 2017 — and, in response to questions about his knowledge of the ranch, said he had read a book about the ranch and litigation.
In a harshly worded letter dated Jan. 10, Boschee addressed a Jan. 3 letter of explanation written by Fano. “Unfortunately, your explanation does not satisfy my concerns about the communication and its impact on my clients.”
He charged that Fano “improperly allowed Harrison to sign what is plainly a legal communication” in violation of Rule 4.2 of the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct regarding communication about the subject of the ranch rights with persons known to be represented by an attorney.
“Despite this, you permitted your client to sign what is plainly a legal communication: The offer characterizes my clients’ legal rights, makes an offer of settlement for those legal rights, describes the process by which my clients might accept the settlement offer and concerns the exact subject matter of my representation in a 30-year running lawsuit.”
Boschee’s letter says the purpose of the Colorado rule is “to ensure that a party or an attorney does not overreach or exploit another party who is represented and who may not have a formal education or legal awareness to understand the legal consequences at stake.”
The offer made by Harrison claimed there are no records to indicate whether land grant heirs had made use of their rights and that the ranch owner has no way of knowing if a rights holder intends to use such rights.
The rights-holders are not required to use the land.
Boschee wrote that, “after three decades of litigation that is currently pending on appeal, just such a process exists.”
The ranch stretches across more than 20 miles of Sangre de Cristo ridgeline and includes the 14,047-foot Culebra Peak and 18 13,000-foot peaks.
In the mid 1800s, Mexico granted the property to a French Canadian trapper who then doled out deeds to Mexican and Spanish settlers in an effort to colonize the San Luis Valley before Colorado was a U.S. state. In 1960, lumberman Jack Taylor bought the property and closed the ranch, irking families of those settlers who had used the property for grazing, logging, hunting and fishing.
The ensuing range war lasted three decades before the Colorado Supreme Court settled the dispute by restoring wood gathering and limited grazing rights to heirs of the original settlers but denying hunting rights.
Harrison is appealing that ruling.