Judge rules in favor of Bad Rock Fire Department in case where attorney claimed she owned land beneath the south hall

Flathead County District Court Judge Robert Allison Monday issued a summary judgment in favor of the Bad Rock Fire Department in a unique court case where a Columbia Falls attorney claimed she owned the land under the department’s south hall on Middle Road.

In 1993, Bad Rock farmer Thelma Carter donated 1.3 acres to the Bad Rock Fire Department. The department would build a south hall there, along with a training building and other amenities.

Thelma Carter died in March 2020.

Then in July, attorney Mickale Carter and her husband, Eugene Kirschbaum, filed suit against the district, claiming they actually owned the property the hall sits on.

Mickale Carter is one of the daughters of Thelma Carter. 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 Allison ruled against Carter on May 3, 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.

The fire department was represented by the Flathead County Attorney’s office.

If Carter had prevailed in the suit, the department could have encountered millions in expenses in order to find a plot of land and move or build another building. Also, homeowners five or more miles away from the main hall would have seen their insurance rates jump, or possibly been uninsurable entirely, the fire department maintained in court documents.

Carter claimed last week that she was willing to settle if the department would allow her to build an access road to the north of the hall on the fire department property. The road would have served the remaining 78 acres or so of the Carter estate that she owns.

She also conceded there were alternative, but longer ways to access the property.

Now it appears she’ll have to use one of those options.