Background
The plaintiffs are 137 landowners who collectively own 138 parcels adjacent to an 11.9-mile railroad corridor in Snohomish County, Washington. After Snohomish County sought to abandon and convert the corridor to recreational use, the Surface Transportation Board issued a Certificate of Interim Trail Use on July 11, 2024. The County and the holder of a freight-rail easement subsequently executed a trail-use agreement.
The landowners alleged that the railroads had held only easements for railroad purposes and that, absent the Trails Act, those easements would have terminated and left the plaintiffs with unencumbered property. The government contended that most of the original deeds conveyed fee-simple title to the railroads, leaving the adjacent owners without reversionary interests that could have been taken. The parties filed cross-motions for partial summary judgment addressing title and takings liability.
The Court’s Holding
The court held that, under Washington law, the deeds conveying corridor property to Northern Pacific Railway, Seattle Lake Shore & Eastern Railway, and Seattle & West Coast Railway conveyed fee-simple interests rather than railroad-purpose easements. Applying the deed-interpretation framework from Brown v. State, the court found that the deeds generally conveyed defined strips of land without language expressly limiting their use or providing for reversion. Because the railroads owned those lands in fee simple, issuance of the CITU did not take any reversionary interests associated with them. The court also rejected the plaintiffs’ newly raised “non-invasive” takings theory because it had not been pleaded in the fourth amended complaint.
The court reached the opposite result for property the railroads acquired through federal land grants or adverse possession. The government acknowledged that those interests were easements limited to railroad purposes and did not encompass public-trail use. The court therefore granted the plaintiffs summary judgment on liability for Claims 2.C, 3, 4, 5, 6.A, 8, 45, 46, 47, 121, and 123, and for Claim 49 to the extent based on adverse possession. It granted the government summary judgment on the numerous deed-based claims listed in the order, including Claim 49 to the extent based on the Cathcart Deed. For Claims 7.A, 7.B, and 133, disputed adjacency issues precluded summary judgment; the court directed settlement discussions and stated that it would set those claims for trial if settlement failed.
Key Takeaways
- Under Washington law, a railroad deed conveying a defined strip of land without an express use limitation or reverter may transfer fee-simple title even if it uses the term “right of way” or was executed to facilitate railroad operations.
- Federal railroad land grants and Washington prescriptive rights acquired through adverse possession created railroad-purpose easements that did not extend to public recreational-trail use, supporting takings liability when the corridor was railbanked.
- A plaintiff may not introduce a distinct non-invasive takings theory for the first time at summary judgment when the complaint alleged only a physical taking of a reversionary property interest.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates that title is often dispositive in Trails Act litigation. Adjacent landowners cannot recover merely because a former rail corridor becomes a trail; they must establish a property interest that would have become unencumbered absent federal railbanking. The language and form of the original conveyance, interpreted under governing state law, determine whether such an interest exists.
The ruling also distinguishes deed-based fee ownership from railroad-purpose easements arising through federal grants or adverse possession. That source-of-title distinction produced liability on 11 claims and the adverse-possession portion of Claim 49, while defeating most of the plaintiffs’ other claims and leaving three adjacency-dependent claims for possible settlement or trial.