Montana Wilderness Association v. United States Forest Service
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
655 F.2d 951 (1981)
Burlington Northern (defendant) owned Montana timberland acquired through an original federal railroad land grant, checkerboarded with surrounding national-forest land, and obtained a Forest Service permit to build an access road across that national-forest land. A neighboring landowner and environmental groups (plaintiffs) sued to block the road, and after the Ninth Circuit initially reversed a grant of summary judgment for the defendants based on an earlier reading of the relevant federal statute, the defendants moved for reconsideration based on newly available legislative history.
Whether legislative history created after a statute's enactment is entitled to significant weight when its authors clearly considered the specific issue in question.