Deputy Attorney General Clay Smith said in court today that the case involves "an exceedingly unusual situation," and 4th District Judge Deborah Bail agreed. Attorney General Lawrence Wasden went to court to block a decision made by the state Land Board, on which he serves; the board voted 3-2 last March for a new rent scheme in new 10-year leases for state-owned lake cabin sites. Wasden was among the dissenters in the vote.

The cabin sites include 355 at Priest Lake and 167 at Payette Lake on which private owners have built and owned their cabins, in some cases, for generations, while the state owns the land underneath. In wrestling with the situation over the past year, the state Land Board voted unanimously to move toward unifying the estate for cabin sites, which means the same owner would own both the land and the structure. That plan is on the Land Board's agenda for its meeting on Tuesday.