James v. United States
| Decision Date | 28 February 2017 |
| Docket Number | No. 14-6L,No. 14-38L,14-6L,14-38L |
| Parties | TIMOTHY A. JAMES, et al., WILHELMEAN BROWN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. Claims Court |
Cross-Motions for Partial Summary Judgment; Takings Claim; Trails Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1241 et seq. (2012); S.C. Code § 57-3-220(A).
Mark F. Hearne, II, Arent Fox, LLP, Clayton, MO, for the James plaintiffs. With him are Lindsay S.C. Brinton and Meghan S. Largent, Arent Fox, LLP, Clayton, MO.
Elizabeth G. McCulley, Stewart, Wald & McCulley LLC, Kansas City, MO, for the Brown plaintiffs. With her is Thomas S. Stewart, Stewart, Wald & McCulley LLC, Kansas City, MO.
Jacqueline C. Brown, Trial Attorney, Environment & Natural Resources Section, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for defendant. With her was Jeffrey H. Wood, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Environment & Natural Resources Division, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.
In these consolidated rails-to-trails cases, plaintiffs are landowners in South Carolina who allege that they are entitled to receive just compensation under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution because the United States governmenteffected takings of their reversionary property interests by operation of the National Trails System Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1241, et seq. (2012) (the Trails Act). Plaintiffs own property adjacent to the railroad line at issue in the above-captioned cases, which is operated by the South Carolina Central Railroad Company, LLC (SC Central) and extends from milepost 319.89 near Society Hill, South Carolina to milepost 332.68 near Cheraw, South Carolina. Plaintiffs allege that the United States destroyed plaintiffs' reversionary rights to exclusive use and possession of their land when the United States Surface Transportation Board (STB) issued a Notice of Interim Trail Use (NITU) related to the railroad line adjacent to their property.
Although plaintiffs' claims relate to the same 12.8 mile railroad line in Chesterfield and Darlington counties, South Carolina, plaintiffs initially filed their takings claims as two separate cases in the United States Court of Federal Claims, which were identified as Timothy A. James, et al. v. United States, No. 14-6L (Fed. Cl. Jan. 2, 2014), and Rosalyn G. Burns, et al. v. United States, No. 14-38L (Fed. Cl. Jan. 16, 2014) (), filed on January 2, 2014 and January 16, 2014, respectively. At the time the complaints were filed, plaintiffs in James were represented by Mark F. Hearne II of Arent Fox, LLP, and plaintiffs in the then-captioned Burns case were represented by Elizabeth A. McCulley of Baker Sterchi Cowden & Rice.2 As a result of both counsel's solicitation activities at or around the time when both cases were initiated, the separate complaints filed in Brown and James listed three of the same plaintiffs: Rosalyn Gail Burns, Ruby Mae Jefferson, and Sarah Moody. On February 12, 2014, counsel for plaintiffs in Timothy A. James, et al. v. United States moved to intervene in the matter of Rosalyn G. Burns, et al. v. United States. On February 27, 2014, the court held a hearing with defendant and plaintiffs' counsel in both cases to discuss the motion to intervene and how the two cases would proceed moving forward. At the hearing, counsel for plaintiffs in James and Burns, now Brown, agreed to consolidate the two separate actions. On March 7, 2014, the court issued an Order consolidating Rosalyn G. Burns, et al. v. United States, No. 14-38L (), and Timothy A. James, et al. v. United States, No. 14-6L, for case management purposes. Given some of the prior activity to engage clients, the court ordered counsel for plaintiffs in both cases to submit to the court an updated chart identifying the correct case and counsel for each of the named plaintiffs and the date of client engagement.
On May 29, 2014, counsel in James and Brown filed separate, amended complaints clarifying the individual plaintiffs named in each of the two cases. In the Brown case plaintiffs filed a complaint, a first amended complaint, and a second amended complaint. The James plaintiffs filed a complaint and five amended complaints, with the last of the five filed on April 8, 2015. These amended complaints identify each plaintiffand clarify that Rosalyn Gail Burns and Ruby Mae Jefferson, who were initially named as plaintiffs in both James and Brown, are now plaintiffs in James, and Sarah Moody, who also initially was named as a plaintiff in both James and Brown, is a plaintiff in Brown. Therefore, after all of the amended complaints, the plaintiffs in James are as follows: Timothy A. James and Lorraine G. James, Joseph Bell-Bay, J. Scott Bennett, Beatrice K. Bradshaw, Keith Thomas Bradshaw, Mamie Broady, Miriam M. Burn, Rosalyn Gail Burns, Howard Clifton Chapman, Carolyn C. Cole, Julia W. Covington, Cribb Family Limited Partnership, Davis & Co., Inc., Margaret D. Davis, heirs of Mastin Fuller, James Flowers, Jr., Debra Piner on behalf of the Walter F. Godfrey estate, Tomuel Goggins, Belton Grooms, Robin Hepburn, James E. Hill, Daisy L. Hooks, Darren Hooks, Ruby Mae Jefferson, J.L. Anderson Company, Frank M. Kelly, Amanda Knowlin, Amanda Walker on behalf of Thurman D. Lewis and Geraldine Lewis, Eric Dewayne Loflin, Mary Floyd McCormick, Jimmy Samuel McMillon and Glenda Hubbard McMillon, Mutli-Systems Electrical Constructors, Inc., Julian Nolan, Robert P. Nolan, Pentecostal Assembly Holiness Church, Flora Hooks Peyton, John Lewis Rivers III, Sarah Sellers, Robin Hepburn on behalf of Victoria C. Smith, Sonoco Products Company, William A. Sylvia, Town of Cheraw, Joann K. Warr, and Wing Fowler Properties, and counsel of record is Mark F. Hearne, II, of Arent Fox LLP. The plaintiffs in Brown are as follows: Wilhelmean Brown, Thomas Gary, Jr., Jesse W. James and Carlean Strong James, Sarah Moody, Daisy M. Gainey, Polly C. Moore, Gaston Harris and Mary Harris, William S. Johnson, Sr. and Mamie J. Johnson, Marian Jean Johnson, James P. McQueen and Annie B. McQueen, Benny Hart Moore, Alexander Sturdivant and Daisy Sturdivant, Ransom Wilson, Theodore A. Kirby, Dr. N.H. Beaver, L.E. Covington, Jr., C. Rodney Michael and Tonya H. Michael, and James Douglas and Joy C. Myers, and counsel of record is Elizabeth McCulley of Stewart, Wald & McCulley LLC.
The 12.8 mile railroad line at issue in the above-captioned cases was initially constructed by the Cheraw and Darlington Railroad Company pursuant to an Act of the South Carolina legislature in 1849. See 1849 S.C. Acts 583. The Act provided, in pertinent part:
Be it enacted, by the Senate and House of Representatives now met and sitting in General Assembly and by the authority of the same, That for the purpose of establishing a communication by Rail Road from Cheraw to some point on the Wilmington and Manchester Rail Road in the District of Darlington, the formation of a corporate Company, is hereby authorized to be called the Cheraw and Darlington Rail Road Company, which . . . is hereby authorized to construct a Rail Road from the Town of Cheraw to some point on the Wilmington and Manchester Rail Road, in the District of Darlington, by a route to be determined by said Company after the same shall have been formed.
1849 S.C. Acts 583 (emphasis in original). The Act provided further that "the powers, rights and privileges, granted by the Charter of the Wilmington and Manchester Rail Road Company to that Company, shall be and are hereby granted to the Cheraw and Darlington Rail Road Company." 1849 S.C. Acts 584. The Charter to create the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad Company was enacted by the state of South Carolina in 1846. See1846 S.C. Acts 381. The 1846 Act authorized the railroad company to acquire the property on which to construct the railroad through eminent domain, contract, and the presumption of grants of land. See 1846 S.C. Acts 386-89. The 1846 Act stated:
That the said President and Directors, their officers, agents and servants, shall have full power and authority to enter upon all lands and tenements, through which they may desire to conduct their Rail Road, and to lay out the same according to their pleasure, so that the dwelling house, yard, garden or graveyard of no person be invaded, without his consent, and that they shall have power to enter in and lay out such contiguous lands as they may desire to occupy, as sites for deposites, toll houses, warehouses, engine sheds, workshops, water stations, and other buildings, for the necessary accommodation of their officers, agents and servants, their horses, mules, and other cattle, and for the protection of the property entrusted to their care.
1846 S.C. Acts 388. Defendant submits that the Cheraw and Darlington Railroad Company acquired the property to construct the railroad by deed and by condemnation. Plaintiffs contend that the railroad only acquired prescriptive easements for railroad purposes because the railroad was constructed through the exercise of eminent domain and without the underlying landowners' permission or consent.
On December 19, 2011, SC Central filed a Notice of Exemption with the STB seeking authorization "to abandon approximately 12.8 miles of line in Chesterfield and Darlington Counties, SC, between milepost 319.89 +/-, near Society Hill, SC, and milepost 332.48, in Cheraw, SC" pursuant to "the class exemption at 49 C.F.R. § 1152.50." In the Notice of Exemption, SC Central stated that "[t]here are no local shippers on the Line" and that "[n]o local rail traffic" had moved over the line for the previous two years. According to the Notice of Exemption, the "last traffic to move over the Line was in July 2009." The Notice of Exemption also proposed February 8, 2012 as the abandonment date. SC Central stated in the Notice of Exemption that it "believes that the property proposed for abandonment is suitable for other...
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