Tennessee Gas Pipeline v. Mississippi Central R.

• Decision Date: 18 July 2001
• Docket Number: No. 3:99CV177-D-A.,3:99CV177-D-A.
• Citation: 164 F.Supp.2d 823
• Parties: TENNESSEE GAS PIPELINE CO., Plaintiff, v. MISSISSIPPI CENTRAL RAILROAD CO.; Lafayette, Marshall & Benton Regional Railroad Authority; First National Bank, Oxford, Mississippi; and other interested parties unknown to plaintiff, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Mississippi

Page 823

164 F.Supp.2d 823

TENNESSEE GAS PIPELINE CO., Plaintiff, v. MISSISSIPPI CENTRAL RAILROAD CO.; Lafayette, Marshall & Benton Regional Railroad Authority; First National Bank, Oxford, Mississippi; and other interested parties unknown to plaintiff, Defendants.

No. 3:99CV177-D-A.

United States District Court, N.D. Mississippi, Western Division.

July 18, 2001.

James L. Halford, Brunini, Grantham, Grower & Hewes, Jackson, MS, for Plaintiff.

Goodloe Tankersley Lewis, Hickman, Goza & Spragins, PLLC, Oxford, MS, for Defendant.

OPINION

DAVIDSON, District Judge.

Presently before the court is the matter of determining the Defendant Mississippi Central Railroad Company's ownership interest in certain real properties where four of the Plaintiff Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company's pipelines are located.¹ In addition, the court has before it the Defendants' Eleventh Amendment challenge to this court's jurisdiction, the Defendants' motion to have a jury hear the title issues presently pending before the court, and the Defendants' assertion that no federal subject matter jurisdiction exists in this cause.

After hearing argument on July 13, 2001, the court hereby finds that the Defendant Railroad possesses prescriptive easements, as opposed to fee simple ownership, across the subject properties. Further, the court finds that the Defendants' motion to have a jury hear the title issues is without merit, as are their Eleventh Amendment and federal subject matter jurisdictional challenges.

A. Title Issues

In asserting that it owns the subject properties in fee simple, the Defendant Railroad advances two arguments. First, that the Act passed by the Mississippi legislature in 1852 incorporating or chartering the Defendant Railroad conveyed the subject properties to the Railroad in fee simple. Second, that the Railroad holds fee title to the land by virtue of adverse possession. In response, the Plaintiff asserts that the Defendant Railroad owns prescriptive easements in the subject properties, but does not own the properties in fee simple. For the reasons set forth below, the court agrees with the Plaintiff.

1. The 1852 Act

On March 10, 1852, the Mississippi Legislature passed an Act incorporating the original Mississippi Central Railroad. The Defendant Railroad is the ultimate successor-in-interest of the original Mississippi Central Railroad, and the rail line referred to in the Act is the same rail line at issue in this case.

In the Act, the Legislature gave the Railroad the right to "enter upon and take possession of all such lands ... as may be necessary for the construction or repair of said Railroad." See 1852 Act, section 8, page 69. It is this section of the Act that the Defendant Railroad contends gives it the right to claim fee simple ownership of the subject properties.

Other provisions of the same section of the 1852 Act go on, however, to require the Railroad to file an application with a court to take the property if the Railroad and the private landowner cannot reach agreement on compensation. See 1852 Act, section 8, page 70. Further, the Act provides that a jury will be empaneled to determine the damages caused by the Railroad's use or occupation of the property. See 1852 Act, section 8, page 70.

These provisions lead to the inescapable conclusion that the 1852 Act merely gave the Railroad the right of eminent domain, similar to the right Tennessee Gas has under 15 U.S.C. § 717f(h) and under Miss .Code Ann. § 11-27-47. The 1852 Act makes no mention whatsoever of any fee ownership interest the Railroad may have been granted.

Next, the Defendant Railroad cites several United States Supreme Court and lower court decisions in support of its contention that railroad land grants are in the nature of fee title. All of the cited decisions, however, involve legislative grants of public land, not private land, to railroad companies; as such, these cases are distinguishable from the facts of this case. See, e.g., Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf R.R. Co. v. Mackey, 256 U.S. 531, 538, 41 S.Ct. 582, 584, 65 L.Ed. 1076 (1921); Northern Pac. Ry. Co. v. Townsend, 190 U.S. 267, 270, 23 S.Ct. 671, 672, 47 L.Ed. 1044 (1903); Noble v. Union River Logging R.R. Co., 147 U.S. 165, 176, 13 S.Ct. 271, 274, 37 L.Ed. 123 (1893). In all of these cases, no purchase from a private landowner, or condemnation of private land, was required. Congress, or a state legislature, may of course make an outright grant of public owned land to a railroad, and the cited decisions simply clarify that any such grant is typically in the nature of a fee simple, even when it is not so denominated.

As such, the 1852 Act will simply not bear the weight the Defendant Railroad contends it will. Nowhere in the Act do the words "fee" or "fee simple" appear. In fact, the procedure set forth in section 8 of the Act makes clear that the Act merely grants the railroad the right of eminent domain, as opposed to an outright grant of land. And, the land records of Marshall County do not reflect that any condemnation proceedings were ever commenced by the Defendant Railroad, nor are there any recorded deeds from land owners conveying property to the Defendant Railroad, nor are there any Court decrees conveying title from the land owners to the Defendant Railroad.² Hence, the court finds that the Defendants' assertion that the 1852 Act granted the Defendant Railroad fee simple ownership of the subject properties is without merit.

2. Adverse Possession

The Defendant Railroad next argues that, because it has been occupying railroad tracks across the subject properties for over 150 years, it has acquired fee simple title in the land by virtue of adverse possession.

The elements required to establish a claim for adverse possession of land and the elements that are required to establish a prescriptive easement are identical. Thornhill v. Caroline Hunt Trust Estate, 594 So.2d 1150, 1152-53 (Miss. 1992). The Mississippi Supreme Court has held, in a case involving a disputed deed of property to a railroad, that where an easement will satisfy a railroad's purposes, a prescriptive easement — and not fee ownership — will be the interest deemed to be possessed by the railroad. New Orleans & Northeastern R.R. v. Morrison, 203 Miss. 791, 35 So.2d 68, 70 (1948). In other words, a railroad does not gain fee title to property simply by virtue of engaging in railroad operations and utilizing railroad tracks that run over the property. New Orleans & Northeastern R.R., 35 So.2d at 71; see also Kansas City Southern Ry. Co. v. Arkansas Louisiana Gas Co., 476 F.2d 829, 834 (10th Cir.1973).³

Here, easements will satisfy the Defendant Railroad's purposes. The railroad tracks across the land are utilized solely for railroad operations, and the Defendant Railroad has never used the land for any other purpose. Prescriptive easements that allow the Defendant Railroad to conduct railroad operations across the subject properties is sufficient, therefore, to meet the Defendant Railroad's needs, and fee simple ownership is not required. As such, the court holds that the Defendant Railroad has not acquired fee title to the subject properties by virtue of adverse possession. Instead, the court holds that the Defendant Railroad has gained prescriptive easements across the properties, which the Plaintiff does not dispute.

In a similar case involving a railroad suing a pipeline company for damages associated with the pipeline company's location of its pipelines under the railroad's tracks, a federal appeals court held that while a railroad's easement rights are substantial and worthy of enforcement, those rights cannot deprive the owner of the servient estate or those claiming through such owner from making use of the land below the surface, when the use does not interfere with the maintenance and operation of the railroad. Kansas City Southern Ry. Co., 476 F.2d at 834-35. In line with that court's ruling, this court finds that a jury must be empaneled in this cause to determine if the Plaintiff's use of the land below the Defendant Railroad's tracks has interfered with the Defendant Railroad's prescriptive easement rights in the subject properties, and if so, the amount of compensation to which the Defendant Railroad is entitled.

B. Motion to Have Jury Hear Title Issues

The Defendants assert that factual issues remain regarding the title issues in this case, because the court, on May 3, 2001, denied the Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment as to these issues.

Rule 56(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that summary judgment shall be granted if two conditions are met. First, there must be no genuine issue as to any material fact; second, the moving party must establish that it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R.Civ.P. 56(c). It has long been established that both conditions must be satisfied before an entry of summary judgment may be entered. United States Steel Corp. v. Darby, 516 F.2d 961, 962 (5th Cir.1975). In addition, the Supreme Court has plainly held that trial courts may deny a motion for summary judgment where there is reason to believe that the better course would be to proceed to a full trial. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2513, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986).

The court's May 3, 2001, order denying the Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment clearly stated that the Plaintiff's motion was being denied based upon the Plaintiff's failure to establish that it was entitled to judgment as a matter of law, the second prong in a summary judgment inquiry. Nowhere does the order state or imply that the court denied the Plaintiff's motion due to the court's belief that genuine issues of material fact existed as to the title issues. Further, the Defendants' Motion to Have Jury Hear Title Issues does not identify the genuine issues of material fact it believes still exist, and none were revealed at the July 13, 2001, hearing of...