Albano v. United States
| Decision Date | 01 February 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 19-558 L,19-558 L |
| Parties | NICHOLAS ALBANO, II, et al., Plaintiffs, v. THE UNITED STATES, Defendant. |
| Court | Court of Federal Claims |
Meghan Sue Largent, Lewis Rice, LLC, of St. Louis, Missouri, for plaintiff.
Elizabeth Rose McGurk, Trial Attorney, Environmental and Natural Resources Division, Department of Justice, with whom were, Lawrence VanDyke, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and Jean E. Williams, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, all of Washington, D.C., for defendant.
This case is brought by a group of plaintiffs who own property along a railroad corridor near Atlanta, Georgia. Amended Complaint, ECF No. 5 ¶¶ 21-38 ("Amended Compl."). Plaintiffs allege that "compensation is due from the federal government" under the Just Compensation Clause of the United States Constitution. Id. ¶¶ 2, 19-20. Specifically, plaintiffs contend that the United States Surface Transportation Board's ("STB") conversion of parts of the corridor into a recreational trail and preservation of the railroad's easement, pursuant to the National Trails System Act ("Trails Act"), constitutes a Fifth Amendment taking. Id. ¶¶ 63-75.
Before the Court is the government's motion to dismiss under Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) of the Rules of the United States Court of Federal Claims ("RCFC"). As explained below, the Court holds that the decision of the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia, in Atlanta Dev. Auth. v. Ragan, et al., Civil Action File No. 2016-CV-273389 (Super. Ct. Fulton Cty., Ga., Sept. 12, 2016), does not preclude plaintiffs from pursuing their claims in this Court, because under Georgia law, which this Court is required to apply under 28 U.S.C. § 1738, the decision in Ragan has no preclusive effect on the instant litigation. Accordingly, the government's motion to dismiss is DENIED.
The land in dispute in this Trails Act takings case is part of a former railroad corridor in Atlanta, Georgia, better known as the "Decatur Street Belt" or "Line" ("Line"). Amended Compl. Ex. 1 at 28. The Georgia Air Line Railway Company acquired its interest in the property that established the Line by way of a "right of way" deed from Jerome Bearse in 1869. Amended Compl. ¶3. Since then, several railroad companies have used the Line, most recently Norfolk Southern Railway. Id. at ¶6; Amended Compl. Ex. 1 at 28-29. On March 27, 2017, Norfolk Southern filed a request to abandon a portion of the Line that abuts and allegedly underlies plaintiffs' property. Amended Compl. ¶7; Amended Compl. Ex. 1. Several months later, Atlanta BeltLine, a Georgia non-profit and instrumentality of the City of Atlanta, requested the issuance of a Notice of Interim Trail Use or Abandonment ("NITU") pursuant to the Trails Act. Amended Compl. ¶8; Amended Compl. Ex. 2. On September 28, 2017, the STB issued a NITU. Amended Compl. ¶9; Amended Compl. Ex. 3.
Approximately a year before the NITU was issued, the Atlanta Development Authority and Atlanta BeltLine brought an action in state court against numerous landowners along the Line (several of whom are also plaintiffs in the instant case) seeking a declaratory judgment as to ownership of the disputed property, quiet title, ejectment of encroachments, an injunction to permanently stop encroachments, and liability for trespass. See Atlanta Dev. Auth. v. Ragan, et al., Civil Action File No. 2016-CV-273389 (Super. Ct. Fulton Cty., Ga., Sept. 12, 2016). In that litigation, the defendant property owners argued, among other things, that the Bearse deed transferred only an easement to the disputed property to the state court plaintiffs' predecessors-in-interest, thereby depriving those plaintiffs of any claim to title because Norfolk Southern's purported abandonment of the alleged easement reverted any property interest back to the adjacent landowners along the Line. Order Granting Mot. for Summary Judgment at 3, Atlanta Dev. Auth. v. Ragan, et al., Civil Action File No. 2016-CV-273389 (Super. Ct. Fulton Cty., Ga., Sept. 19, 2017). Without accompanying analysis, the state trial court rejected this argument finding that "the 1869 Deed conveyed fee simple title" to the original railway and, consequently, to any successors in interest.1 Id. In the alternative, the court also held that even if "the 1869 Deed only conveyed an easement . . . there is no evidence that Norfolk Southern Railway Company has filed a notice of consummation of abandonment with the STB," apparently making defendants' arguments irrelevant according to the court's understanding of the issue.2 Id.
In its motion to dismiss, the government argues that this Court "should accept the preclusive effect of the determination of the [Fulton County Superior Court] and dismiss Plaintiffs' complaint," because the state court "held that these Plaintiffs have no valid claim to the land in question because it was conveyed to the railroad in fee," thereby depriving plaintiffsof both standing and the ability to state a legal claim. Def.'s Mot. to Dismiss, ECF No. 7, at 6. Although the government acknowledges that "preclusion in Georgia requires mutual identity of parties, and the United States was not a party to the Ragan case . . . and is not in privity with Atlanta BeltLine," the government nonetheless contends that "applying the Georgia court's ruling in this instance will promote judicial economy and avoid the absurd result of two different courts interpreting these same Plaintiffs' property interests in conflicting ways." Id. In support, the government cites the Supreme Court, the Federal Circuit, and an opinion of an intermediate Georgia state appeals court that is critical of strict estoppel principles. Id. at 7-9. For prudential reasons, the government urges this Court to follow these cases, which support the modern trend of nonmutual collateral estoppel, and ignore the non-preclusive effect the Ragan judgment would receive in a Georgia court.
In opposition, plaintiffs argue that this Court has no discretion in the matter. Instead, plaintiffs contend that every federal court is "commanded 'to accept the rules chosen by the State from which the judgment is taken.'" Pls.' Opp. to Mot. to Dismiss, ECF No. 8, at 8 (citing Marrese v. Am. Acad. of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 470 U.S. 373, 380 (1985)). Because Georgia state law requires strict mutuality of parties to apply collateral estoppel—and the United States was neither a party in Ragan, nor in privity with any of the parties—plaintiffs argue that this Court is not bound by Ragan's interpretation of the Bearse deed. Id. ). Additionally, plaintiffs suggest that Ragan's treatment of the property interest conveyed by the Bearse deed indicates that the issue was not "fully addressed and adjudicated in a manner such that a proceeding here 'would be a waste of judicial resources,'" id. at 4 (quoting Def.'s Mot. to Dismiss at 1), and that even if this Court were permitted to apply collateral estoppel, it should not do so because the title issue was not adequately decided in the state court litigation to lend a preclusive effect to the holding. Id. at 4.
In reply, the government maintains that the caselaw it cites empowers federal courts to "disfavor mutual identity of parties" in cases in which state estoppel rules so demand, because "judicial resources will be misallocated and judicial economy will be thwarted if Plaintiffs are allowed to relitigate the question of whether they have a cognizable property interest in the rail corridor." Def.'s Reply, ECF No. 9, at 2. Ultimately, the government stakes its motion on the view that this Court is not bound to apply Georgia's preclusion rules and thus should not apply the Georgia rule as doing so will lead to "a perverse effect of granting these Plaintiffs a property interest that a Georgia court has specifically held that they do not have." Id.
Under RCFC 12(b)(1), this Court must dismiss any claim that does not fall within its subject-matter jurisdiction. When considering a motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, the Court must accept as true all factual allegations made by the non-moving party and draw all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to that party. See Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236 (1974); Pixton v. B & B Plastics, Inc., 291 F.3d 1324, 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2002) ().
Even if the plaintiff asserts a claim that falls within the Court's jurisdiction, the plaintiff must still present a valid claim on which the Court can grant relief. RCFC 12(b)(6). "When considering a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), a court accepts all well-pled facts as true and draws all reasonable inferences in plaintiff's favor." Silver Buckle Mines, Inc. v. United States, 117 Fed. Cl. 786, 791 (2014) (citing Scheuer, 416 U.S. at 236; Pixton, 291 F.3d at 1326). Granting a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim "is appropriate when the facts asserted by the claimant do not entitle him to a legal remedy." Lindsay v. United States, 295 F.3d 1252, 1257 (Fed. Cir. 2002). Denial of the motion is warranted when the complaint presents "sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to 'state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'" Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)).
The crux of the government's argument in support of its motion to dismiss is its contention that this Court has the discretion to ignore Georgia state preclusion law in this instance because applying it would mean that the Court will have to re-litigate an issue that has...
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