Court Rules Montana Family Owns Massive Dinosaur Fossil Worth Millions

An appeals court has ruled dinosaur fossils worth millions of dollars unearthed on an eastern Montana ranch belong to the owners of the land’s surface rights.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld a 2016 ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Watters that found dinosaur fossils were part of the surface estate, not the mineral estate.

The owners of mineral rights did file an appeal.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit overturned Watters’ ruling in 2018, but Mary Ann and Lige Murray asked for a larger panel to hear the case.

After a divided Montana’s Supreme Court ruled fossils are not minerals, the 9th Circuit upheld Watters’ ruling.

The Murrays began uncovering rare and extremely valuable dinosaur fossils on their Montana property, discoveries that included the fossilized remains of two dinosaurs locked in combat, the foot and skull of a Triceratops and, arguably their biggest find, an almost complete Tyrannosaurus rex.

According to court documents, these fossils possess tremendous scientific value given their rarity. The remains of the two dinosaurs locked in perpetual struggle, known as the “Dueling Dinosaurs,” alone is likely worth several million dollars.

In the years following these discoveries, the Murrays began to sell some of the prehistoric relics. The Murrays sold the Triceratops foot for $20,000, have offered to sell the sell the Triceratops skull for $200,000 to $250,000 and sold the T. Rex skeleton to a Dutch museum for several million dollars.

All the money made from the sales of the fossils has been held in an escrow account for many years, as the legal battle for who truly owns the rights to them, ensued.

Now, the Murray’s are in fact, the sole owners of the fossils as they have been classified as not being ‘minerals’.