McClurg Family Farm, LLC. v. United States

CourtUnited States Court of Federal Claims
DecidedFebruary 24, 2014
Docket1:10-cv-00156
StatusPublished

This text of McClurg Family Farm, LLC. v. United States (McClurg Family Farm, LLC. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Federal Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McClurg Family Farm, LLC. v. United States, (uscfc 2014).

Opinion

In the United States Court of Federal Claims No. 10-156L

(Filed: February 24, 2014) __________

MCCLURG FAMILY FARM, LLC, et al., * for themselves and As Representatives of a * Rails-to-trails case; Cross-motions for partial Class of Similarly Situated Persons, * summary judgment; Ownership interests * under Iowa law; Stipulation – application of Plaintiffs, * Burgess and Jenkins to the parcels in this * case; Railroad interests – easement versus * fee; Burden of proof where original v. * conveyance documents are missing; Application of Iowa Code § 327G-77 to THE UNITED STATES, * railroad lines owned in fee; Questions of * fact. Defendant. * * __________

OPINION __________

Thomas Scott Stewart, Baker Sterchi Cowden & Rice, Kansas City, MO, for plaintiffs.

Frank James Singer, Environment and Natural Resources Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., with whom was Acting Assistant Attorney General Robert G. Dreher, for defendant.

ALLEGRA, Judge:

Plaintiffs, landowners in Iowa, allege that their property was taken as a result of defendant’s actions under the National Trails System Act (the Trails Act), 16 U.S.C. §§ 1241-51. The court certified the class on July 27, 2010. Pending are cross-motions for partial summary judgment regarding defendant’s liability as to the 360 parcels at issue. For the reasons that follow, the court renders a split decision, concluding, as a matter of law, that defendant is liable with respect to some of these parcels and not as to others. For still other parcels, the court determines that the existence of genuine issues of material fact precludes a ruling as to liability. The court’s determinations are summarized in the appendix that follows this opinion.

I. BACKGROUND

A brief recitation of the underlying facts sets the context for this decision. The class of plaintiffs in this case owns real estate that assertedly underlies or adjoins a 36.9 mile railroad corridor that runs through Dickinson and Osceola Counties, Iowa (the Railroad Line). The Railroad Line was originally created by the Iowa Northwestern Railroad (INW), which established the corridor through a combination of various forms of conveyance and transfer.

On September 5, 2008, INW filed a petition for an abandonment exemption with the Surface Transportation Board (STB), 1 seeking permission to abandon the Railroad Line, specifically a segment between milepost 215.4, west of Mackenzie Junction, to milepost 252.3, west of Braaksma, located in Dickenson and Osceola Counties. On October 3, 2008, the Iowa Trails Council filed a Request for Issuance of a Public Use Condition and Notice of Interim Trail Use. On October 24, 2008, the STB issued a Notice of Interim Trail Use (NITU) 2 relating to the Railroad Line identified above. Following several extensions of the negotiating period, on or about August 31, 2009, INW and the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation (the Foundation), on behalf of the Dickinson County Trails Board and the Osceola County Conservation Board, reached an agreement to purchase the Railroad Line from INW for interim trail use and railbanking pursuant to section 8(d) of the Trails Act. By letter dated October 19, 2009, the Foundation notified the STB of this agreement.

On March 12, 2010, plaintiffs filed their complaint in this court seeking just compensation under the Fifth Amendment for property they claim was taken when the STB issued the NITU pursuant to the Trails Act. As mentioned, on July 27, 2010, the court certified a

1 The STB has exclusive authority over all the nation’s rail lines. See Chi. & N.W. Transp. Co. v. Kalo Brick & Tile Co., 450 U.S. 311, 321 (1981). A railroad cannot terminate rail service on a particular line without first getting the STB’s consent. See Barclay v. United States, 443 F.3d 1368, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2006), cert. denied, 549 U.S. 1209 (2007).

2 There are three ways to terminate rail service. First, a railroad can apply to the STB for permission to discontinue service. See 49 U.S.C. § 10903(d)(2). Second, a railroad can ask the STB for permission to abandon the rail line through a proceeding. See id. at § 10903(d)(1). Finally, under the Trails Act, a railroad can terminate service through a process known as “railbanking.” Under the railbanking process, the railroad must first file an abandonment application under 49 U.S.C. § 10903, or a Notice of Exemption from that process under 49 U.S.C. § 10502. Thereafter, a third party may ask the STB to issue a NITU so that the former railway can be used for interim trail use. The interim trail is subject to the “possible future reconstruction and reactivation of the right-of-way for rail service.” 49 C.F.R. § 1152.29(a)(1)- (3). The NITU gives the railroad 180 days in which to negotiate an interim trail use agreement with the third-party trail sponsor. Id. at § 1152.29(d)(1). If an agreement is reached, then the trail sponsor manages the right-of-way, subject to a possible future restoration of rail service; if an agreement is not reached, the railroad may exercise its authority to abandon the line. Id. at §§ 1152.29(d)(1) and (e)(2).

-2- class that eventually grew to include 360 individual parcels and 279 individuals or entities. On August 23, 2010, plaintiffs filed a first amended complaint; on March 21, 2011, they filed a second amended complaint.

As discovery progressed, the parties generated and exchanged a series of claims books, a process designed to isolate the documents and arguments associated with given parcels and to identify the need for additional discovery. Through this process, plaintiffs agreed to dismiss voluntarily their claims as to 19 parcels, leaving 341 parcels. On June 30, 2011, plaintiffs filed a motion for partial summary judgment as to 150 of these parcels, for which they claimed defendant had no bona fide objection to liability. Before oral argument on that motion, plaintiffs filed a motion to compel seeking to require defendant to stipulate to the ownership and adjacency to the Railroad Line of 188 parcels. In an effort to get a single motion covering all the parcels, on March 16, 2012, the court conducted a status conference, at which the parties agreed to cancel the argument scheduled on plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment and to take positions with respect to all of the parcels at issue.

After the parties exchanged additional documents, plaintiffs filed, on September 13, 2012, a supplemental motion for partial summary judgment on liability. On October 12, 2012, defendant filed a cross-motion for partial summary judgment. In the midst of the briefing of that motion, the undersigned decided Burgess v. United States, 109 Fed. Cl. 223 (2013), which dealt with the issuance of a NITU under the Trails Act with respect to another rail line in Iowa. On March 7, 2013, the court issued an order setting argument on May 23, 2013, on the parties’ supplemental cross-motions for partial summary judgment.

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