LEWIS RICE SECURES OVER $5 MILLION FOR LANDOWNERS AFFECTED BY ECUSTA TRAIL PROJECT

Lewis Rice, a law firm based in St. Louis, announced June 6 that it has won more than $5 million in a lawsuit for Henderson County and Transylvania County property owners who live along the Ecusta Trail being constructed between the two counties.

Property owners sought compensation, saying that their land was being stripped from them due to the construction of the trail.

According to a news release, Lindsay Brinton and Meghan Largent, attorneys from Lewis Rice’s Federal Takings & Rails to Trails Practice Group, won $5,039,224 for 164 property owners. The payment will come from the U.S. Treasury Department, Brinton said. According to court records, the amount of compensation for individual property owners ranges from $222.68-$191,061.30.

The Ecusta Trail will be a 19.4-mile trail that will go from Hendersonville to Brevard. The groundbreaking for the first section of the trail in Hendersonville was held in October 2023.

On June 28, 2021, the federal Surface Transportation Board issued a Notice of Interim Trail Use, allowing for the conversion of the railroad corridor formerly owned by Blue Ridge Southern Railroad, a division of Watco Companies, into the Ecusta Trail pursuant to the National Trails System Act, the release said.

The following day, Brinton and Meghan Largent filed what would become the first and largest case regarding the Ecusta Trail rail-trail conversion: Austin v. United States. It alleged the conversion of the railroad corridor for public trail use violated landowners’ property rights, namely, to regain full use and control of the land once it was abandoned for railroad purposes.

On May 31, 2024, the United States Court of Federal Claims awarded just compensation to the landowners, the release said. The total compensation includes interest from the date of the taking of their property to the date of payment.

“Many of these landowners were disheartened by the taking of their property for trail use,” Brinton said in the release. “They shared concerns of trespassing, loss of privacy, loss of river access and impact on farming operations. One was disappointed with the lack of collaboration with the contractor involved with trail development after her stone wall, gravel driveway and Leyland cypress trees were all removed with little communication about the process.

We are pleased that we have been able to obtain the just compensation from the federal government that these individuals are entitled to.”