Pub. 10 2015 Issue 1

www.ucls.org 18 Issue 1 2015 / UCLS Foresights is, at law and in equity, by the equally powerful principle that everything truly essential to the enjoyment of any grant legally passes with it. Most if not all jurisdictions within the US have historically accepted and honored the rule that in the context of any R/W grant, there can be no presumption that a fee simple title was conveyed, and in some states that principle has even been codified, resulting in the broadly applied presumption at law that every R/W represents an easement, unless a contrary intent can be proven. In addition, the principle of grant limita - tion has long been upheld with particular reference to grants issued by a sovereign, and often with specific reference to R/W, in a wide variety of forms, so the relevance of that principle to this scenario would appear to be especially strong, making its application fully justifiable, as the CCOA undoubtedly realized. Thus here all of the pieces were in place to demolish the arcane facade which has so long shielded the allegedly absolute nature of the land rights held by railroads in the context of feder- al R/W grants, and the CCOA was up to the task of hurling the proverbial hammer of the gods toward that fragile and illusory protective bubble. The three prongs of the trident upon which UP was im- paled, presuming that this decision of the CCOA stands, can be readily identified. The first prong was the ambiguity inherent in the highly general granting language used by Congress when creating land rights, which has made such rights a subject of perpetual controversy and confusion for well over a century. The second prong was the lack of respect historically demon- strated by virtually all railroads for the power of the principle of grant limitation, which is most often exhibited when rail - roads quitclaim land in which they actually hold no title that can be conveyed to anyone for use as anything other than a RR R/W, since this practice has historically enabled the perpetra - tion of many devious schemes devised by land sharks to extort innocently ignorant land owners. The third and final prong was the ill-advised reference to property rights embedded in the disputed land use and rental agreement, since that reference invited intense judicial scrutiny of the unclear title held by UP, with which the CCOA so astutely dismantled that agreement. The predecessors of UP acquired nothing more in the way of land rights for RR R/W purposes by means of their federal grants than was minimally required to create, build and oper- ate a railroad, the CCOA has postulated, and no right to further burden the land through the execution of any other ventures, however profitable or attractive they might be, was incorpo - rated into any such grants. Although the granted RR R/W was apparently adequately defined in terms of horizontal extent, presumably with a simple width dimension, dependent upon the track position, the vertical extent of such RR R/W was es - tablished only through case law spanning several decades. Such RR R/W has never been judicially deemed to possess the depth component of a fee simple conveyance, the CCOA has now il- lustrated, thereby depriving the unwisely created subsurface easements of validity. All of the easements executed by UP and held by SF, in all of those locations where any federal land grants represent the source of the real property rights held by UP, may very well be void, even after standing upon the public record for decades, due to a lack of authority in UP to grant any such rights in the relevant lands. To that extent, this high profile battle represents nothing more than a greatly magnified repetition of the same fundamental title controversy which has plagued literally thou - sands upon thousands of innocent citizens, whose lands are traversed, or were once traversed, by railroads, or whose lands adjoin either active railroads or former railroads. American land owners are entitled to complete legal clarity upon this matter, which rather than diminishing in significance over the past century, has risen to a higher level of urgency, due to an increased public desire to utilize former RR R/W for other activities, along with rising property values. In that regard, it is noteworthy that while the direction suggested by the CCOA emphasizes the retention of land rights by the US in making the contested land grants, it does nothing to aid the cause of Rails-to-Trails proponents, since the CCOA position concedes that those rights which were reserved by the US passed to the federal patentees of the relevant lands, as confirmed by SCO - TUS in the 2014 Brandt case. Nevertheless, regardless of who eventually wins or loses in the present litigation, the matter of utmost importance is simply obtaining clarity and certainty of title, so that the true status of all title can be readily known to all parties, and for that reason it must be hoped that this con - flict ultimately serves the interests of the American people, by producing such finality. How the parties to this legal action will respond to the outcome of this CCOA decision is unknown of course, all that is known as this article is composed is that the parties have evi - dently decided to pursue this litigation further. Specifically, the Supreme Court of California will be asked to review the CCOA decision, and that request may be either accepted or denied. If that request is denied, the CCOA decision effectively becomes final, if on the other hand the requested review is performed, then the California Supreme Court will presumably either ex- pressly uphold or expressly reject the detailed position on RR R/W title that has been set forth by the CCOA. In such event, the California position on the relevant title issue will achieve finality in that manner, but even if that point is reached, still further action on this case in California seems inevitable, since it appears certain to require additional attention at the trial court level. Indeed, along with the reversal of the lower court on the title issues, as noted herein, the CCOA remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings on both the title issues and the financial issues, before the case was re-directed to the Cali - fornia Supreme Court as described just above. Nonetheless, presuming that this potent treatise provided by the CCOA stands and is not undone, given the depth to which the core title issue was very adroitly examined by the CCOA, the California position on that issue is quite likely to be gradually RAILROAD RIGHT OF WAY continued from page 16