More on the Nelson County sporting case

Thursday's Charlottesville paper had this report on the circuit's ruling in the Orion case.

I had wondered whether the constitutional argument was a bit of a red-herring in the case, but it makes me recall one of my favorite legal arguments.

In Virginia law, there is or was a statute limiting the liability of landowners to persons who come on their land for purposes of "hunting." Supposedly, one of my old bosses won a case where the plaintiff had been "hunting" for ginseng. You can imagine the examination. "So, you were hunting for ginseng?" "You had heard there was ginseng there, and you were hunting for it?" etc. I'm not sure how that outcome, despite its ingenuity, squares with the concept of "hunting" applied in the Nelson County case.