The Mabee Road case is a cautionary tale for all Montana landowners.

This saga started in 2007 when Mark Robbins gated a road on his property to stop trespassers. That action caught the attention of the Public Land Water Access Association, a nonprofit that exists to sue landowners to take their property.

PLWA first attempted to pressure the Fergus County commission to declare the road public. The commission asked their attorney to examine the matter—he concluded the road was private. Next, PLWA sued the Robbins's with the objective of taking the road for public use—the district court c...