02-1358 Mauler v. Bayfield County (58062)

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“The Maulers argue that 43 U.S.C. §§ 912, 913 and 16 U.S.C. § 1248(c) do not apply to the former railroad corridor and the land is not subject to reversion to the United States because it is not a ‘right of way’ within the meaning of the statutes. Instead, the Maulers invoke a state common law precedent which they read as automatically vesting title to the strip in them as adjoining landowners upon its abandonment by the Railroad. See Pollnow v. State Dept. of Natural Resources, 276 N.W.2d 738 (Wis. 1979) (holding in case where railroad grant was an easement and not a right of way that title vested in abutting landowner once railroad abandoned land). The Maulers’ argument fails for two reasons. First, unlike Pollnow, the original grants of land in this case were grants to the Railroad in fee simple that included an implied right of reverter to the United States under the rationale first espoused in Townsend and later embraced by 43 U.S.C. § 912. Second, § 913 expressly permits the Railroad to convey its strip of land to Bayfield County for use as a public highway. Thus, even if we did not find that the United States retained a right of reverter under the original grant, the Railroad’s interest in the land is now properly vested in Bayfield County through the county’s dedication of the land as a public recreational trail. Either way the Maulers have no legal interest in the former railroad corridor.

“Likewise, we find the strip of land subject to disposition under 43 U.S.C. §§ 912, 913 and 16 U.S.C. § 1248(c). The language of § 912 (‘public lands of the United States . . . granted to any railroad company for use as a right of way for its railroad’) and § 913 (‘[a]ll railroad companies to which grants for rights of way through the public lands have been made by Congress’) plainly refers to all Congressional grants of public lands for railroad rights of way. Moreover, the legislative history of § 912 reveals that Congress enacted the law primarily to resolve title disputes with respect to abandoned and forfeited federal railroad lands of the type discussed in Townsend. S. REP. NO. 67-388 (1922); H.R. REP. NO. 67-217 (1921). And courts interpreting these statutes have consistently found other Congressional grants of federal lands for railroad rights of way subject to disposition under §§ 912 and 913. See, e.g., Vieux v. East Bay Reg’l Park Dist., 906 F.2d 1330 (9th Cir. 1990); Idaho v. Oregon Short Line R.R. Co., 617 F. Supp. 207 (D. Id. 1985); Marlow v. Malone, 734 N.E.2d 195 (Ill. App. Ct. 2000). Clearly Congress assumed the United States possessed a reversionary interest in railroad rights of way, else it would make little sense for Congress to have passed laws like §§ 912, 913 and § 1248(c) to dispose of land the federal government did not own. Applying these federal statutes to the land in this case, we find that § 912, as modified by § 1248(c), vests a reversionary interest in the strip in the United States and not the Maulers. When the Railroad conveyed the strip to Bayfield County and Bayfield County established a public highway on the land as required by § 913, the United States’ reversionary interest expired in favor of Bayfield County. In short, the Maulers never possessed a legal interest in the former railroad corridor.”

Affirmed.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, Crabb, J., Flaum, J.