Key Points

  • The Federal Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the United States on Fifth Amendment takings claims arising from a 2019 Notice of Interim Trail Use for a 7.68-mile segment of Florida's Venice Branch.
  • Applying the Florida Supreme Court's Rogers decision, the panel held that each conveyance deed unambiguously conveyed fee simple title to the railroad, notwithstanding right-of-way language in two deeds.
  • The panel held that the 1926 condemnation judgment was ambiguous because 'right of way' can describe either a right of passage or a strip of land, and that the parties' proposed jury instructions and joint stipulation showed that the land itself was condemned in fee simple.
  • The panel rejected the landowners' policy arguments and their contention that nominal consideration made the deeds voluntary conveyances outside the Rogers framework.
  • The panel denied the request to certify questions to the Florida Supreme Court, finding no novel interpretation of Florida law.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled Thursday that the federal government owes no compensation to Florida landowners whose property borders a former rail line known as the Venice Branch. The court held that the railroad had owned the land under its tracks outright, leaving the landowners no property interest for the government to take.

Judge Lourie wrote for a panel that also included Judges Stoll and Stark. The panel affirmed two decisions by Judge Edward H. Meyers of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, who had granted the government summary judgment.

The case turned on a question that recurs under the National Trails System Act Amendments of 1983, the federal law that lets railroads hand unused corridors to trail operators instead of abandoning them. The question is whether old deeds and court judgments gave a railroad fee simple title or only an easement. The panel held that, under Florida law, the words "right of way" do not by themselves create an easement.

The dispute concerns an approximately 7.68-mile segment of the Venice Branch, once operated by Seaboard Air Line Railway. In March 2019, the corridor's operator, Seminole Gulf Railway, L.P., filed a notice of exemption to abandon the line. The Sarasota County Board of County Commissioners then asked the Surface Transportation Board, the federal agency that regulates rail lines, to allow interim trail use.

In May 2019 the board issued a Notice of Interim Trail Use, an order that lets a railroad stop service and salvage its track without legally abandoning the line. When the board issues such a notice, Lourie wrote, quoting circuit precedent, "state law reversionary interests that would otherwise take effect pursuant to normal abandonment proceedings are forestalled." Blocking those interests can amount to a Fifth Amendment taking of private property, for which the government must pay just compensation.

The landowners, led by Deborah E. Barron, sued the United States in the Court of Federal Claims. They argued that the railroad had received only an easement and that the trail notice blocked the unencumbered title they would otherwise have regained. The government responded that the railroad had received the land in fee simple.

The railroad acquired the corridor through seven deeds and a 1926 condemnation judgment, a court judgment taking part of the land for railroad use. Lourie applied to the deeds principles the Florida Supreme Court announced in 2015, when it answered questions the Federal Circuit had certified to it in Rogers v. United States. One of those principles holds, in part, that "[w]hen the language of a deed is clear and certain in meaning and the grantor's intention is reflected by the language employed, there is no room for judicial construction."

The deeds met that standard, the panel held. Two of them conveyed "all their right, title and interest, of any nature whatsoever" in "[a]ll those certain pieces or parcels of land," and the deeds contained no reversionary clause. Several conveyed the land "forever," and a deed from a grantor named Ringling conveyed it "in fee simple forever."

Two deeds from the Florida Mortgage and Investment Company also contained "right of way" language. Lourie wrote that "under Florida law, describing conveyed land using the phrase 'right of way' does not automatically mean a grantor conveys an easement; rather, the language of the deed must be evaluated as a whole." He relied on a 1934 Florida decision holding that "[a] railroad right of way in this state is not a mere easement or user for railroad purposes."

The landowners had argued that Florida public policy disfavors fee simple railroad estates on strips of land and that right-of-way language presumes an easement. Lourie wrote that "all the deeds use clear and certain language, and any policy arguments that ignore the language of the deeds must therefore fail."

The panel also rejected the argument that nominal sums recited in the deeds made them voluntary conveyances outside the Rogers framework, because the Florida Supreme Court had held that "the amount of consideration stated in a deed provides no basis for questioning [its] validity."

In the 1920s condemnation proceeding, the Tampa Southern Railroad Company sought to condemn part of the property, and a jury set compensation at $61,500 for a "piece, parcel or strip of land." The judgment appropriated the property "for use as a right of way for said Railroad Company."

The panel agreed with the Claims Court that this wording was ambiguous. Citing an 1891 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Lourie wrote that "right of way" can describe "a right of passage over any tract" or "that strip of land which railroad companies take upon which to construct their road-bed."

The panel therefore examined filings from the 1926 case, namely each side's proposed jury instructions and a joint stipulation describing the land to be condemned. "Both sets of proposed jury instructions charge the jury with considering the value of the specific land—not the value of the right to use that land," Lourie wrote. The panel concluded that the judgment conveyed the land in fee simple.

The landowners' counterarguments, which drew on Vermont law and general principles of railroad takings, "do not engage with the text of the Condemnation Judgment or the filings from the condemnation proceeding," the court held.

The panel also denied the landowners' request to certify to the Florida Supreme Court what they called "the novel interpretation of Florida law" underlying the decisions below. "We see no such 'novel interpretation,'" Lourie wrote.

Mark F. Hearne II of True North Law Group, LLC argued for the landowners. Emily Polachek of the Appellate Section of the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division argued for the government.

The decision leaves in place the Claims Court's judgments for the government in both appeals, Nos. 2025-1179 and 2025-1459.