The Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause guarantees “just compensation” when the government takes private property. That much has been long settled. The harder question—the one at the center of this case—is how courts measure that compensation when the government takes property by easement rather than outright.
For example, when a former railroad corridor is converted into a public trail rather than the easement vanishing with the abandoned railroad, does “just compensation” cover every legal right the “new” easement encumbers? Or only the particular interferences the trail sponsor chooses to impose at a given moment? The answer will shape how thousands of landowners are paid when the government takes from them.
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Case Summary
Marty Kotis is a property owner in North Carolina. Like many Americans, he invested in land with the understanding that his rights—his ability to use it, protect it, and exclude others—were secure.
Then the government stepped in.
Normally, when an easement user – like a railroad company – abandons its easement – like its use of the railroad, that easement goes away, and the property owner’s land is no longer burdened by it. But decades ago, Congress created a loophole by enacting the National Trails System Act, which created a federal-law mechanism for local governments to step in and claim the use of those to-be-abandoned easements for trail systems instead. In other words, rather than vanish because the railroad company wanted to abandon it, the easement would stay in place and continue burdening the landowner’s property. And that is what happened to Marty Kotis: A former railroad corridor running through his property was converted into a public trail under the National Trails System Act. Everyone here agrees on one thing: the federal government’s conversion of the easement from a railroad easement to a trail easement was still a “taking.” But what exactly was taken and what must be paid for has become the central fight.
The government argues that what it took from Marty was minimal, almost negligible. In its view, he should only be compensated for the specific ways the trail currently interferes with his property, not for the full scope of rights he lost.
Marty and the trial court saw it differently.
Kotis’s theory—and the Court of Federal Claims’ holding—is that compensation must reflect all of the legal rights the new easement takes away, most importantly the right to exclude. When a corridor once limited to railroad personnel is opened to the general public, the landowner loses the ability to decide who comes onto the land. In doing so, he also loses the ability to reasonably expect how he can develop his land, because he would have to undo the development any time it interfered with someone’s hypothetical future use. The Supreme Court has called this right to exclude “one of the most essential sticks in the bundle of rights commonly characterized as property.”
What’s at Stake
This case asks whether the government can redefine what it has “taken” when it admittedly has “taken” property and, in doing so, pay far less than what the Constitution requires.
The legal problem with the government’s rule is a matter of settled property doctrine. At common law, and in virtually every American treatise, an easement has been defined by the legal rights it confers, not by how the easement-holder happens to use it on any given day. If compensation tracks only present use, the government can take broad rights now, pay for a narrow slice of them, and expand its use later without owing another dollar. That is not “just compensation.”
The real-world impact of this approach is already visible. Across the country, old railroad corridors cut through private land. A trail that bisects a farm separates fields from equipment and livestock from pasture. Public access invites trespass, contamination of crops, and the risk of injury to and from livestock. And the landowner loses the practical ability to decide who comes onto his property.The Supreme Court has long recognized that the right to exclude is one of the most essential rights of property ownership. Without it, ownership becomes little more than a label.
That is why this case carries such weight.
With tens of thousands of miles of railroad corridors still eligible for conversion, the decision here will shape how these takings are valued nationwide. It will determine how much landowners are paid, how property rights are defined, and whether the Constitution’s promise remains strong or begins to fade.
Mountain States Legal Foundation joined this amicus brief because the case presents a narrow but consequential legal question: whether the Fifth Amendment’s just-compensation requirement tracks the full legal scope of what the government takes, or only a shifting subset of actual uses. The answer will have lasting consequences. The history and tradition of American property law, the Supreme Court’s right-to-exclude jurisprudence, and the lived experience of landowners across the country all point the same direction.
But this case isn’t just about land…it’s about trust. The kind of trust that allows Americans to invest, build, and pass something on to the next generation, confident that their rights will not be quietly diminished.
MSLF is proud to stand in defense of that trust. Because in America, ownership should mean something. And when it’s taken, justice demands nothing less than full and fair compensation.
