Wolford v. Lopez · ¶136

The scope of any license to enter can vary in ways that are relevant here. First, as courts have traditionally recognized, local custom can provide a baseline. Consider, for instance, McKee v. Gratz, 260 U. S. 127 (1922), a case involving button makers who had entered the plaintiff ’s private land in search of mussel shells, id., at 134. In many places, that entry might have been a trespass—“[t]he strict rule of the English common law” required affirmative consent before entry. Id., at 136. But in Missouri, where the mussel hunting took place, “[t]here was evidence that the practice” of permitting people to enter private lands to hunt “had prevailed.” Ibid. And that local custom mattered: The Court explained that the English common law “must be taken to be mitigated” by “the practice [that] had prevailed in [the] region” where the suit originated. Ibid. In other words, there was…

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