Polk v. Ball

LEE, Circuit Judge.

This case involves a contest between rival claimants of a fund fixed by a jury of freeholders as just compensation for .623 of an acre of land taken in condemnation proceedings by the United States Government.1 The condemned acreage formed part of a tract of 3.39 acres described in a deed from Kent Company, Limited, to the Alexandria & Western Railway Co., in April of 1913.

The determinative question before us is whether the deed conveyed a servitude (right-of-way) or a fee title. If only a servitude was conveyed, appellants are entitled to the fund; but if a fee title…