Judge Carlson took the matter under advisement. Four days of testimony had turned the lake, the dam, the cabins, and their owners into thousands of pages of exhibits and hours of recorded testimony. Outside the courthouse, reporters asked whether I felt certain of victory. I told them that judges were supposed to consider evidence rather than predictions, and I would wait for the ruling. Then I drove home through the first light snow of the season, wondering how many more winters I would spend looking at an empty lake.
The written decision arrived on December 3. It was thirty-two pages long, and I read the first ten before David's number appeared on my phone. Judge Carlson ruled in my favor on the HOA's principal claims and rejected the demand for $40 million in damages. The opinion found that the cabins occupied my recorded land without a valid conveyance or authorization, and that the HOA had not established a right to require me to maintain the reservoir at a particular level for its commercial benefit. It also credited the evidence that the drawdown was an actual, supervised maintenance operation subject to the applicable regulatory constraints.
The court granted relief on the trespass claim. Mountain Vista was ordered to remove the 109 cabins and associated improvements within 120 days, subject to appropriate safety and restoration plans, and to pay $2.5 million in assessed damages. David read those provisions aloud while I sat at the kitchen table, staring at the name James Whitmore printed on the top page. I asked him to repeat the removal deadline. He did, then reminded me that appeals, enforcement motions, and practical demolition issues could still change the schedule.
"You won the central issue," David said. "But there's still work between a court order and a restored shoreline." I looked out through the window at the broad pale valley. The cabins were still there that afternoon. Garrett was still in his office, and Patricia was still worried about retirement. A decision on paper had changed the legal position of every one of us, but it had not yet moved a single foundation.
I told David I understood, then asked him what it would take to make the order happen.
The morning after the ruling, the county newspaper printed a photograph of the deserted resort beneath a headline about a lake owner winning a historic property case. Inside, the article quoted Judge Carlson's finding that Mountain Vista had built on land it did not own. It also quoted a cabin investor who said the decision had left ordinary people paying for the arrogance of a few executives. Both statements were true, and I carried the newspaper around the cabin for most of the day without deciding where to put it. Eventually I laid it on the table beside my grandfather's old survey.