Stewart, Wald & Smith Wins Rails-to-Trails Liability Ruling for Nine Maryland Landowners
Rails to Trails Law Firm - Stewart, Wald & Smith
In a September 16, 2026 opinion in Blake v. United States, No. 24-1372, U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Ryan T. Holte granted the landowners’ motion for partial summary judgment on liability and denied the federal government’s competing motion. The court agreed that converting the railroad easements across their properties to a public recreational trail exceeds the rights the railroad held.
For SWS’s clients, the ruling is a major step toward obtaining the just compensation guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. The amount of compensation remains to be determined. The next step is for SWS to establish the value of the land taken for the trail.
-A Railroad Right-of-Way Has Limits-
The case concerns three segments of the Cambridge Secondary Track totaling approximately 14.73 miles, including stretches between Cambridge and Linkwood, between Hurlock and Preston, and a short segment within Hurlock.
The property rights at issue trace back to the 1890s, when the Baltimore and Eastern Shore Railroad acquired rights to operate across privately owned land. Most of the easements addressed in the ruling were created by deeds granting the railroad a right-of-way “for its road bed.”
The federal government argued that Maryland law permitted those easements to accommodate a recreational trail because both railroads and trails could be considered public highways. SWS argued that the actual rights acquired by the railroad were narrower: permission to use the land for railroad purposes did not authorize a new public recreational use.
The court agreed with the landowners.
-SWS Took Action After Federal Trail Authorization-
On August 30, 2024, the federal Surface Transportation Board issued a Certificate of Interim Trail Use for the corridor. That action authorized the railbanking process, which preserves a corridor for possible future railroad service while allowing interim recreational trail use.
SWS filed the landowners’ lawsuit on September 4, 2024. The firm alleged that federal action imposed a new burden on its clients’ property and prevented them from enjoying their land free of the former railroad easements. The original complaint was amended in October 2024 and again in February 2025 to add additional landowners to the suit. These landowners sought compensation for the property taken, damage to the remaining property, and other recoverable amounts.
In March 2025, the Maryland Transit Administration and Dorchester County notified the Surface Transportation Board that they had entered into an interim trail use agreement covering all three segments.
The September 2026 ruling advances SWS’s clients to the next stage of their compensation claims. A public trail may benefit the community, but the Fifth Amendment requires compensation when the federal government takes private property to make that public use possible.
-Another 37 Parcels May Support Compensation Claims-
SWS’s investigation has identified 37 additional parcels along the affected corridor whose owners the firm believes could bring viable claims for compensation against the United States.
Based on its investigation and the court’s ruling, SWS believes these owners may have a strong basis to pursue—and prevail on—claims involving the same rail-to-trail conversion. Each potential claim requires review of the property’s ownership history, the railroad’s rights, and ownership when the taking occurred. The court’s current ruling concerns the nine landowners in the Blake case; it does not automatically award compensation to other owners along the corridor.
Owners of property adjoining the affected railroad segments should have their property rights evaluated, even if they have always assumed the railroad owned the strip outright. As this case demonstrates, a railroad may hold only a limited easement across land owned by someone else.
Landowners who believe their property may be affected can contact Stewart, Wald & Smith at 314-720-0220 to discuss a potential compensation claim.
Jacqueline Tebbe
Stewart Wald and Smith, LLC
+1 314-720-0220
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