What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Virginia
There are lots of details that I'm willing to share if asked, but keeping this as brief as possible.
We have pictures of the neighbor kids (14 & 17) coming about 500 feet onto our property (not bordering theirs, plus our property is posted, fenced & gated) to remove one of their dogs from our live trap. We had no idea their dogs came down there (they have 5 they let run loose as the county doesn't have a leash law)> The Sheriff's dept was notified, they asked them, they admitted, mother said they'd pay if we did not press charges, we agreed on that condition.
The father called us the next day, left a message, then promptly blocked our number so I sent a demand letter a week later - certified mail. He then called to accuse us of trapping out of season, not visiting the trap daily, transporting animals to other sites, etc. The only thing we were doing is maybe trapping out of season because we didn't know what we were trapping - only trying to find out what kind of predator had moved in. It's legal for us to trap coyote, skunk or feral cats (gray area there) year round, but we can only kill (not trap) foxes, raccoons & many other predators year round. We thought if we could kill, we could trap, so our bad on that & we'll take the ticket if needed. However, the game warden is not interested in filing charges. We didn't actually catch anything but puppies, which we would have gladly released.
His defense is that he won't pay because the traps were there illegally. We don't really care about the traps - an apology would have been fine - we were more concerned about the trespassing.
While this was going on, the deputy went on vacation for a month & no one else in the sherriff's office would handle the case. Now that he's back, I've been told the case was closed because 1) we agreed to work it out (I agreed on the condition that they paid & he said I could call him if they didn't & he didn't mention the month of vacation at the time) and 2) the commonwealth's attorney looked at it & closed it because the damage wasn't malicioius.
My questions -
1. Can they just close a case without notifiying me? Can I make them open it back up?
2. If I file a civil case, what are my options? I know about property damage, but our real issue is the trespassing.
3. If we were trapping illegally, does that cancel out our property damage claim? or are those two separate issues?
4. He has told the neighbors (they stop us to tell us on the way in) that he says we're getting tickets & we did xyz & to make sure we know he has a concealed weapons permit. Is there anything we can do about this?
Thank you for taking time to read this. I probably included way more details that anyone wanted to read.
This whole thing makes me feel like I'm acting crazy, but at this point, I feel like I have to follow through with something to defend my property rights.
There are lots of details that I'm willing to share if asked, but keeping this as brief as possible.
We have pictures of the neighbor kids (14 & 17) coming about 500 feet onto our property (not bordering theirs, plus our property is posted, fenced & gated) to remove one of their dogs from our live trap. We had no idea their dogs came down there (they have 5 they let run loose as the county doesn't have a leash law)> The Sheriff's dept was notified, they asked them, they admitted, mother said they'd pay if we did not press charges, we agreed on that condition.
The father called us the next day, left a message, then promptly blocked our number so I sent a demand letter a week later - certified mail. He then called to accuse us of trapping out of season, not visiting the trap daily, transporting animals to other sites, etc. The only thing we were doing is maybe trapping out of season because we didn't know what we were trapping - only trying to find out what kind of predator had moved in. It's legal for us to trap coyote, skunk or feral cats (gray area there) year round, but we can only kill (not trap) foxes, raccoons & many other predators year round. We thought if we could kill, we could trap, so our bad on that & we'll take the ticket if needed. However, the game warden is not interested in filing charges. We didn't actually catch anything but puppies, which we would have gladly released.
His defense is that he won't pay because the traps were there illegally. We don't really care about the traps - an apology would have been fine - we were more concerned about the trespassing.
While this was going on, the deputy went on vacation for a month & no one else in the sherriff's office would handle the case. Now that he's back, I've been told the case was closed because 1) we agreed to work it out (I agreed on the condition that they paid & he said I could call him if they didn't & he didn't mention the month of vacation at the time) and 2) the commonwealth's attorney looked at it & closed it because the damage wasn't malicioius.
My questions -
1. Can they just close a case without notifiying me? Can I make them open it back up?
2. If I file a civil case, what are my options? I know about property damage, but our real issue is the trespassing.
3. If we were trapping illegally, does that cancel out our property damage claim? or are those two separate issues?
4. He has told the neighbors (they stop us to tell us on the way in) that he says we're getting tickets & we did xyz & to make sure we know he has a concealed weapons permit. Is there anything we can do about this?
Thank you for taking time to read this. I probably included way more details that anyone wanted to read.
This whole thing makes me feel like I'm acting crazy, but at this point, I feel like I have to follow through with something to defend my property rights.
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