ALTA Joins Brief in Case Before Supreme Court Addressing Rights to Abandoned Rail Lines

December 10, 2013

In October, the Supreme Court agreed to review Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States to determine if the United States held an implied reversionary interest in rights-of-way created by the General Railroad Right of Way Act in 1875. ALTA, along with Cato Institute, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the Public Lands Council and a group of prominent real estate law professors argue that the Tenth Circuit's holding that the government holds an "implied reversionary interest” in the right-of-way land is contrary to other court rulings and well-established principles of property law, and would unsettle title to millions of acres of land throughout the nation.

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