Background
Adjacent landowners and a volunteer fire department in Henderson and Transylvania counties, North Carolina, sought Fifth Amendment compensation after a 19.1-mile rail corridor was converted to interim trail use under the National Trails System Act. The Surface Transportation Board issued a Notice of Interim Trail Use or Abandonment on June 29, 2021, and the railroad later conveyed the corridor to Ecusta Rails2Trails LLC.
The parties agreed that the remaining plaintiffs owned land adjoining the corridor when the NITU issued. Their dispute concerned the interests acquired by the Hendersonville and Brevard Railway in 1894 deeds. Plaintiffs contended the deeds were void for unresolved latent ambiguities, leaving only prescriptive railroad easements, or alternatively conveyed easements limited to railroad use. The government argued the deeds conveyed fee-simple title.
The Court’s Holding
Judge Bonilla denied plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment and granted the government’s cross-motion. The court held that plaintiffs lacked a cognizable property interest in the corridor because the 1894 source deeds validly conveyed fee-simple title to the railroad.
Although the deeds’ references to a “strip of land” and missing engineers’ maps created a latent ambiguity regarding the corridor’s precise boundaries, the court held that North Carolina law permitted use of extrinsic evidence to resolve it. The undisputed railroad location and 1916 Interstate Commerce Commission valuation maps sufficiently identified the conveyed land. The court further held that the deeds’ language—granting and conveying a strip of land to the railroad and its successors “forever”—did not plainly express an intent to convey a lesser estate and therefore did not overcome North Carolina’s fee-simple presumption.
Key Takeaways
- A rails-to-trails plaintiff must establish a cognizable property interest in the corridor at the time of the alleged taking.
- Under North Carolina law, latent ambiguities in historic railroad deeds may be resolved with extrinsic evidence, including later valuation maps and the established railroad location.
- Language conveying land to a railroad and its successors “forever,” without limiting language such as a right-of-way grant, supported fee-simple title here.
Why It Matters
The decision ends this takings claim at the threshold property-interest stage. Because the railroad acquired fee-simple title, the adjoining owners retained no reversionary interest that could have been taken when the corridor was railbanked for trail use.
The opinion also underscores the evidentiary importance of historic railroad valuation records when original surveys or maps referenced in old conveyances cannot be located.