Welcome to Cato Daily Podcast. Today is Monday, March 26th. I'm your host Anastasia Yuglova.

Oral arguments started last week in Wilkie v Robbins, a case in which a Wyoming property owner took federal officials to court because they engaged in outright

harassment after he refused to sign over an easement of his land.

The question before the court?

Whether it is wrong to retaliate against a property owner for exercising his

constitutionally protected rights that may sound bizarre to some of you how can

government retaliate against a property owner for doing what the law allows him to do but the case is being to the Cato Book Cornerstone of Liberty, Property Rights in 21st Century America, and an attorney at the Pacific

Legal Foundation.

What happened to Frank Robbins that led him to the Supreme Court?

Well Frank Robbins bought a ranch in Wyoming in the 1990s and the former owner of the ranch had negotiated with the Bureau of Land Management about giving the government an easement across the land, but the government failed to record this easement.

And what that meant was that Robbins bought the land not knowing about this, and so the law works in such a way that was extinguished.

There was no easement so he buys the

land free and clear the government realizes they've made this mistake and

rather than trying to negotiate honestly with Robbins they immediately try to intimidate him into giving the government an easement across the land.

Intimitate, what do you mean? What have they been doing?

Well, they began by telling him things like, well, the United States doesn't negotiate and that they were going to

play hardball if he was going to resist them and so they began to do things like trespassing

on his property he alleges that they broke into his house and destroyed some of his furniture

they harassed the customers that went to his guest ranch

videotaped them for example and drove cars to stand in their way

and in one case they even brought a frivolous criminal charge against him in court

on the grounds that he had interfered with federal officers in the performance of their

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