Attorney appeals Bad Rock ruling to Montana Supreme Court

A rural Columbia Falls attorney has filed a notice of appeal to the Montana Supreme Court in a case where she claims she owns the land where the Bad Rock Fire Department’s South Hall sits.

Attorney Mickale Carter and her husband, Eugene Kirschbaum filed suit against the fire district last July, claiming her mother, Thelma Carter, didn’t get the proper legal permissions from all the heirs to the Carter estate when Thelma donated 1.3 acres to the Bad Rock Fire District back in 1993.

Mickale Carter claims that when her mother signed over the property to the district some 28 years ago, she “had not been given authority from all seven owners, the Carter siblings, to transfer title.”

Carter, 28 years later, disputed that she approved the donation and that she now owned the property.

But in May, Flathead County District Court Judge Robert Allison ruled against Carter, noting she had five years initially to contest the land transfer in court, but didn’t do so.

In short, the statute of limitations had run out on the case, he said.

“…Mickale has waited 28 years to regain possession of the parcel transferred to Bad Rock. Mickale is incorrect that she could not bring suit until her mother died in 2020. She had an interest in the property and the right to bring suit to protect it in 1993. The statute of limitations for regaining possession of real property is five years … The statute of limitations has run on Mickale’s suit to quiet title to the one-acre plot transferred to Bad Rock,” he ruled.

Now Mickale Carter has filed a notice of appeal to the Montana Supreme Court.

As of presstime, no supporting documents had been filed in the case.

The Bad Rock Fire Department is represented in the case by the Flathead County Attorney’s office.

Cater has previously claimed she would be willing to settle if the department would give her an easement along the north side of the hall so she could build a road to access the other 78 acres she owns behind the hall.

But she has also conceded that there are other ways to access her property — they’re just longer in length.

The department noted in previous court documents that if Carter prevails, they’d have to spend millions to build a new south hall, as they’d have to buy land and build a new building.

Without a south hall, some landowners could see their home insurance skyrocket and some may have a difficult time getting homeowners insurance at all because they would no longer be close to a fire hall.

The department’s main fire hall is on Highway 206 about five miles to the north.