Court rules in favor of landowner in trail dispute

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court sided with a Wyoming property owner on Monday in a dispute over a bike path that runs along the route of an abandoned railroad. This decision could force the government to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to landowners.

The justices ruled 8-1 that property owner Marvin Brandt remains in possession of the 200-foot trail that bisects his 83-acre parcel in the Medicine Bow National Forest in southern Wyoming. The trail was once a railroad route and is one of thousands of miles of abandoned railroads that have been converted into recreational trails.

Chief Justice John Roberts said the government was wrong to claim ownership of the trail.

The government says it faces damage claims affecting 10,000 properties in 30 states, likely exceeding $100 million.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in a separate opinion that the court’s decision “undermines the legality of thousands of miles of former rights of way that the public now uses for transportation and recreation.”

The dispute has its roots in the settlement and development of the Western United States in the 19th century. The government granted railroads the right to lay tracks on public lands to make it easier for people to reach and live in the West. The government later distributed millions of acres of public lands to settlers and homesteaders, but maintained the railroad’s path through these once-public lands.

As Roberts noted Monday, “The settlers and their successors remained, but many railroads did not.”

The Brandt case concerned what happens to a railroad path, known as a right-of-way, when a railroad abandons it under an 1875 law.

Roberts, writing for the court, stated that Laramie’s owners, Hahn’s Peak and Pacific Railroad (LHP&P) had “rosy expectations” upon completion of the 66-mile route from Laramie, Wyoming, to Coalmont, Colorado, in 1911.

The owners said it would become “one of the most important railroad systems in the country,” Roberts said. He also noted that locals at the time said the acronym LHP&P stood for “Lord Help Push and Pull,” or “Late, Hard-Pushed, and Panicked.” In any case, the railroad was not making money.

The line changed hands several times before its last owners ripped up the tracks and abandoned it in 2004. The government claimed it two years later, and all but one of the 31 landowners along the route have abandoned all claims.

Brandt was the only opponent and won the trial on Monday.

The case is called Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. US, 12-1173.