Law Commons^™

Doing A Double Take: Rail-Trail Takings Litigation In The Post-Brandt Trust Era, Danaya C. Wright

UF Law Faculty Publications

After providing a brief explanation of railroad development, railbanking, the takings cases, and the Brandt Trust decision, this Article will explore the implications of each of these three legal issues at the heart of the takings disputes. What makes the decision in Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States particularly disappointing is not that the Court came to the wrong conclusion in its interpretation of the railroad’s interest in federally granted railroad rights of way (“FGROWs”) granted pursuant to the 1875 General Railroad Right of Way Act, but that its wrong interpretation adds all of the 1875 Act FGROW …

Charitable Deductions For Rail-Trail Conversions: Reconciling The Partial Interest Rule And The National Trails System Act, Scott Andrew Bowman, Danaya C. Wright

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article examines an undeveloped legal topic at the intersection of tax law and real property law: charitable deductions from income tax liability for donations of railroad corridors that are to be converted into recreational trails. The very popular rails-to-trails program assists in the conversion of abandoned railroad corridors into hiking and biking trails. However, the legal questions surrounding the property rights of these corridors have been complex and highly litigated. In 1983, Congress amended the National Trails System Act to provide a mechanism for facilitating these conversions, a process called railbanking. In essence, a railroad transfers its real property …

The Shifting Sands Of Property Rights, Federal Railroad Grants, And Economic History: Hash V. United States And The Threat To Rail-Trail Conversions, Danaya C. Wright

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article is an analysis of a federal circuit case from 2005 that has spawned some disturbing precedents in the area of federal transportation and railbanking policy. Specifically, the National Trails System Act (NTSA) provides a mechanism for preserving unused railroad corridors for future reactivation while allowing interim recreational trail and mixed utiity use along the corridor. Converting rail corridors to recreational trails is a very popular process and communities across the country are demanding more and more conversions, as people seek the amenities of linear parks and greenways.

Hash v. United States, however, deals with the property rights …

Eminent Domain, Exactions, And Railbanking: Can Recreational Trails Survive The Court’S Fifth Amendment Takings Jurisprudence, Danaya C. Wright

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article attempts to locate the legal aspects of recreational trail development within the increasingly powerful property rights movement. The most complex result of this rising property rights rhetoric is a clear shift in constitutional takings doctrine to be more sympathetic to landowners' arguments. Thus, the interplay of takings decisions and trails development will be the focus of most of this article.

Part II provides a brief account of the legal structure of governmental land use controls and the current state of takings jurisprudence to form a basic background for the different ways in which recreational trails have been developed. …

Pipes, Wires, And Bicycles: Rails-To-Trails, Utility Licenses, And The Shifting Scope Of Railroad Easements From The Nineteenth To The Twenty-First Centuries, Danaya C. Wright, Jeffrey M. Hester

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article responds to a series of class action suits filed against railroads, telecommunication companies, and the federal government claiming that once railroads abandon their corridors, all property rights shift to adjacent landowners. This Article reviews the state law on this matter and offers a theory of how courts should handle these cases. After discussing the history of nineteenth-century railroad land acquisition practices, we analyze the scope of the easement limited for railroad purposes. We then discuss the role abandonment plays in affecting the rights of third party users of these corridors as well as successor trail owners. We conclude …