Centurylink tore up our pasture.... any recourse?

[th3w01f]

I'm just checking to see if anyone has any advice in this area before I call and write to complain.

Now that the snow is melted we can see that the centurylink techs that came out to set up DSL tore up our pasture for about 200 yards. Deep ruts from getting their dually stuck over and over, down to the axle (they don't even get 4x4s). They had to bring in a tow truck the following day to pull their truck out.

They were scheduled to come and turn on DSL, but when they showed up they didn't let us know they were here and just headed down to the very back of the property where their equipment is mounted to a pole. The pole is not on our property, it's actually on the neighbors behind us and had they approached from that side there is a real road that would have gotten them within about 50' of the pole. Information I could have easily shared with them had they stopped at the house. Also, due to the snow, I knew the conditions back there were very bad and would have told them to come back another time if they weren't willing to use the road to their pole. To make matters worse, they didn't even follow our basic road and decided that since the road looked bad, they'd just cut straight across the pasture....

I knew it was bad but couldn't tell how bad until the snow fully melted. Basically we have two ruts about 2' wide and 18' deep going for several hundred feet across the pasture. I'm hoping we can fix it with our tractor but I'm not sure exactly how to approach the fix since our tractor isn't very big. Our neighbors are going to sign a grazing lease with us but I'm not sure if it's safe for their cattle with the way it is now.

Anyone ever dealt with anything like this before?

[Great-Kazoo]

Pictures of before and after will help. IF there's no documentation of land prior to, it's on you to prove otherwise.
Do they have right of way access? If so why wasn't it followed. These are things you should have been on the horn to them about as soon as you noticed it .

[th3w01f]

*/this post does not constitute legal advice. Hire an attorney to seek legal advice. This is merely opinion/*

No reasonable recourse beyond trying to talk to century link and see if they try to make it right. (Okay, that sentence almost sounds like a joke in itself)

Any recourse honestly probably isn't worth it. You'll probably spend more time on hold getting the run around with them than you would just fixing the pasture, I imagine. Small claims or something is possible, but honestly, I don't think I'd do that, personally. Filing, service of process, time lost, etc. all costs you money out of pocket that you probably wouldn't get back, and if you contract with CL in any way they probably have arbitration clauses and other garbage that could theoretically bind that up.

Thanks, for the info. Hopefully someone near here has a tractor big enough to plow this down. I just can't understand why they chose to take a muddy field instead of a real road to where they needed to go. Probably just being lazy but they paid for it by having 3 trucks here for about 4 hours trying to get them out the first night and then having to come back the next day.

[ray1970]

I doubt they will do anything for you. But contacting them about it might keep this from happening in the future. My company has some meter stations that have to be accessed by crossing someone's property. I know we have agreements with the land owners about exactly how we will and won't access the stations. Perhaps bringing the matter to their attention will make sure the next time their people need to access their equipment they will know to use the road you mentioned and not to cut across your pasture.

[hurley842002]

Not to sound like a jerk, but coming to a gun forum and asking for advice, probably isn't the first thing you should have done. If you haven't at least expressed the issue to them, you should probably start there. Like was previously stated, at a minimum you should give them a heads up so it doesn't happen again.

[Jamnanc]

If you were close to me, I'd fix it for shooting access. Castle rock is a helluva drive for me with a skid steer though. Should be able to fix it pretty quick with a tracked skid steer.

[rondog]

I think you should pursue it. Might have been CL, might have been contractors of theirs. Either way, they're insured for stuff like this. It's in their best interest to keep good relations with landowners.

[buffalobo]

In most cases you will get run around and blown off. At the end of the day they simply don't give a shit.

Check around your "neighborhood", plenty of folks will have proper equipment to repair pasture. If you get it taken care of next couple weeks it will be unnoticeable after spring rains pass.

The neighbor you made pasture lease deal with is where I would start. They may have good contacts in area.

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[TRnCO]

ruts aren't that big of deal, and as buffalobo mentioned, get it smoothed up now and after more snow and some rain, it'll hardly be noticeable before long.
When I had my shed built, one of the delivery drivers, for whatever reason, decided to go off of the crushed asphalt driveway and got stuck with his large truck. Neighbor with large tractor had to come pull him out. Left big ruts. My contractor brought in his skidsteer once things dried up a bit, and simply leveled it off and in less than a year, I can hardly see where the ruts were. The ground will heal itself quickly, so all that is needed is to smooth the rutted area up, and the grass will regrow in short order.
Only reason I'd contact Centurylink is to make sure that they understand that I don't want it to happen again.

[th3w01f]

Thanks for the advice, I agree it's not a huge deal, it's the way it happened that pisses me off more than anything.

Gates are in place now so there's no way on to the property without coming to us first. I guess they'll have to use the road if they need to access their equipment for anyone else in the neighborhood.