Biery v. United States

OPINION

FIRESTONE, Judge.

The plaintiffs in these consolidated cases are fourteen Kansas landowners who claim to own the fee interests in land underlying two previously-operating sections of a railroad line.1 The plaintiffs claim that the defendant (“government”) effected a taking of the plaintiffs’ fee interest in the railroad corridor when the government approved the conversion of the subject railroad line to a recreational trail pursuant to the “railbanking” provision of the National Trails System Act Amendments of 1983, 16 U.S.C. § 1247(d) (“Trails Act”). The plaintiffs, whose fee interest…