Lee v. Norfolk Southern Ry. Co.

By Judge Robert P. Doherty, Jr.

In 1898, Shartzer bought a fifteen-acre tract of land in the Town of Salem. In 1906, Tidewater Railway Company, now Norfolk Southern Railway Company, condemned a 100-foot wide strip of land bisecting Shartzer’s land in order to construct railroad tracks. In 1907, the Town of Salem purchased a thirty-foot wide strip of land from Shartzer to accommodate the construction of an overpass across the proposed railroad tracks. The deed for that strip of land was only between Shartzer and the Town of Salem. The railway company was not a party to that deed, but the deed…