Jerrel v. State, Department of Natural Resources

OPINION

FABE, Justice.

I. INTRODUCTION

State regulations require that holders of state grazing leases mark their livestock. When neighbors complained about the horses on Dan and Viola Jerrel’s grazing leases, the Department of Natural Resources terminated the leases on the ground that the Jerrels had failed to brand their horses. Yet neithpr Alaska statutes nor relevant regulations require that horses be marked with a brand so that these marks may be .visible at twenty feet. Because DNR’s ad hoc interpretation of the livestock marking requirement is a regulation that was not adopted in…