Virginia Supreme Court affirms lower-court ruling in Right to Retrieve Law case

The Virginia Supreme Court has affirmed the ruling of a state appeals court in a case challenging the state’s Right to Retrieve Law, which allows hunters to continue coon and fox hunts on private land and enables hunters to access private property to retrieve hounds hunting game.

The case had been brought in Henrico County by a group of landowners against the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, with the landowners seeking compensation under the Fifth Amendment’s Just Compensation Clause and Article I, § 11 of the Virginia Constitution, claiming that the Right to Retrieve Law takes their right to exclude hunters for a public use.

“The dogs run loose and loudly on plaintiffs’ properties, disturbing the peace of their private homes, agricultural uses and leased hunting cabins, chasing deer and presenting a safety risk to plaintiffs’ clients, livestock and families,” the landowners wrote.

The Henrico County Circuit Court ruled in favor of the DWR, which had argued that that the Right to Retrieve law decriminalizes rather than authorizes hunters’ entries on private land, and that the department is not responsible for the intrusions.

A press release from the office of Attorney General Jason Miyares notes that 24 Virginia localities have passed resolutions in defense of right to retrieve as a rural Virginia tradition.

“This is a huge win for Virginia’s hunting dog community,” Miyares said. “Virginia hunters treat their dogs as family, and there are fewer traditions more prized by rural Virginians than our hunting dogs. More than half of hunters in Virginia use hunting dogs, and fewer than 60 out of 6,000 hunting complaints involved trespass violations involving hunting dogs.

“The right to retrieve has existed without incident in Virginia law for over 100 years. George Washington himself is credited with being the father of the American foxhound, the original brace being a gift of the Marquis de Lafayette. Virginia’s right to retrieve is a sound reminder that nature, tradition and neighborliness remain qualities we still value as Virginians,” Miyares said.