Court ruling it won in 1942, that it had retained a right to the right-of-way and intended to use the railroad right-of-way for a recreational trail; therefore, the United States sued Marvin Brandt.

Beginning in 2006, through the Wyoming federal district court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, MSLF battled for Marvin Brandt pro bono. Now, MSLF’s nearly-unanimous (8 to 1) Supreme Court victory will benefit thousands of landowners across America. During oral argument, Justice Breyer, who voted with the majority, speculated that “millions” could be affected by the ruling.

The question before the Court was, when a property is subject to a railroad right-of-way granted under the General Railroad Right-of-Way Act of 1875 and the right-of way is abandoned by the railroad, whether the United States had retained an implied reversionary interest in the right-of way after the underlying lands were patented into private ownership?

MSLF argued that a right-of-way under the 1875 Act granted an easement only, and upon abandonment by the railroad, any interest in the right-of-way was extinguished and passed to Mr. Brandt. The federal government argued that, in the 1875 Act, Congress granted more than a mere easement and that the federal government retained a reversionary interest in the right-of-way, which allowed the United States to convert the abandoned railroad right-of-way into a public trail.

The Court ruled in favor of Mr. Brandt declaring that the United States lost, “in large part because it won when it argued the opposite before this Court more than 70 years ago in the case of Great Northern R. Co. v. United States. In his opinion for the court, the Chief Justice wrote, “[I]f the beneficiary of the easement abandons it, the easement disappears, and the landowner resumes his full and unencumbered interest in the land.” Lectured the Chief Justice, “The essential features of easements—including, most important here, what happens when they cease to be used—are well settled as a matter of property law…. Those basic common law principles resolve this case.” Finally, “nothing in the text of the [law] supports [the federal government’s] improbable (and self-serving) reading.”

That the federal government brought this lawsuit against Mr. Brandt, that it pursued it over the years, and that it made the baseless arguments it did is positively shameful. Fortunately, MSLF was there to make it right! Thank you for your support of MSLF’s remarkable and successful efforts in this case.

The Supreme Court’s opinion is here: