Your Home is Your Castle… So Long As It’s Purple

Written by Evan Lee

The home has always been associated with privacy. Under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, every person has an expectation of privacy in their homes and even in the area immediately surrounding their homes (commonly referred to as the “curtilage”). This expectation of privacy prevents the government from entering the property, searching it, or seizing anything from it without first meeting a certain threshold of proof. Yet as technology grows more advanced and the objectives of our governments change, the extent to which these privacy protections apply have grown increasingly dubious.

An important exception to the Fourth Amendment is the “open fields” doctrine, a US Supreme Court ruling from 1924 that held that the Fourth Amendment does not provide any protection to areas that are accessible to the public beyond the curtilage (Hester v. United States (1924)). Because society doesn’t recognize a person’s expectation of privacy in those areas or items as “reasonable”, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy that protects open fields from government intrusion (Katz v. United States (1967)). So long as the land is outside the curtilage and is either unoccupied or undeveloped, the “open fields” doctrine has been held to apply regardless of precautions such as fences, warning signs, or other case-specific facts(Oliver v. United States (1984)). At the federal level, this doctrine has been used to justify everything from aerial surveillance to trespasses by law enforcement on private land (California v. Ciraolo (1986)).

However, the open fields doctrine was recently challenged in Punxsutawney Hunting Club, Inc. v. Pennsylvania Game Commission (2026), a case decided before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on July 21, 2026. The case involved two private hunting clubs who had taken extensive steps to exclude outsiders from their land, including placing “no trespassing” signs and purple paint along their property lines and screening their borders from the public with gates, fences, or even greenery. Between 2013 and the time of the case, a game warden entered the land of these clubs between 15 to 22 times without consent, warrant, or probable cause to justify his entry. On one of these entries, the game warden set up a trail camera on the property that remained there for 78 days before being taken down.

The Hunting Clubs appealed the case to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court under the theory that their private land was a possession subject to Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government, a theory that was strictly at odds with precedent. Specifically, they challenged three state statutes granting officers the authority to enter into private areas outside of the curtilage. Previously, this area of law had been governed by Commonwealth v. Russo (2007), a case which had held a wildlife conservation officer’s entry into a hunting camp justified under the open fields doctrine, despite the presence of “no trespassing” signs.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that while the doctrine of stare decisis would have them adhere to the ruling of Russo, recent case law extending the privacy protections of Article 1, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution justified revisiting the issue. Under Article 1, Section 8, the Pennsylvania Constitution protects “persons, houses, papers and possessions” from government intrusion, as opposed to the “persons, houses, papers and effects” mentioned in the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution.

The Court found that the key difference between the terms “possessions” and “effects” was that “possessions was understood to include land. As such, Pennsylvania citizens held a privacy interest in their land, even those considered as “open fields”, so long as the landowner demonstrates a reasonable expectation of privacy by taking sufficient steps to exclude intruders. These include, but are not limited to, setting up no trespassing signs and marking boundaries with purple paint (See 18 Pa. C.S. § 3503(b)(1)(vi)). Finding that the Hunting Clubs had fulfilled this precautionary burden, the Supreme Court overturned Russo to hold that state agents were required to obtain a warrant before entering such properties.

While not all of us have private hunting clubs, many of us have areas of our homes where the open fields doctrine may apply: backyards, driveways, or agricultural fields. Under the holding of Punxsutawney Hunting Club, Inc. v. Pennsylvania Game Commission, Pennsylvania citizens have a reasonable expectation of privacy in these places, so long as the proper precautions are taken. This applies not just to entry by government officers, but also to outside technological surveillance by the government through devices such as drones, aerial photography, or Flock cameras.

In an era of increasing surveillance, Pennsylvania citizens can take concrete steps to guard their lands against government searches and seizures. However, the open fields doctrine remains a complex issue; what constitutes “sufficient steps” is a fact intensive, case-by-case question that is best addressed by those familiar with the law. In cases where a privacy violation has already occurred, experienced legal counsel may be necessary to assert these privacy rights on your behalf.

Pennsylvania’s privacy protections for private land continue to evolve, and the steps a property owner takes to establish and maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy can matter. If you have questions about your rights as a landowner, government access to your property, or whether your property has adequate protections in place, contact MPL’s Land Use, Municipal, and Litigation teams to discuss your situation.