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Nature of Suit Code: 450
Nature of Suit: Interstate Commerce
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 18, 2011 Decided February 3, 2012 

No. 10-7135 

CITY OF JERSEY CITY, ET AL., 

APPELLANTS

v. 

CONSOLIDATED RAIL CORPORATION, ET AL., 

APPELLEES

PAULA T. DOW, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF 

NEW JERSEY, 

INTERVENOR

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:09-cv-01900) 

Charles H. Montange argued the cause for appellants. 

With him on the briefs was Andrea C. Ferster.

Elizabeth S. Merritt was on the brief of amici curiae 

National Trust for Historic Preservation, et al. in support of 

appellants. 

 

Robert M. Jenkins, III, argued the cause for appellees. 

With him on the briefs were Adam C. Sloane and Fritz R. 

Kahn. 

USCA Case #10-7135 Document #1356332 Filed: 02/03/2012 Page 1 of 10
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Paula T. Dow, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney 

General for the State of New Jersey, and Kenneth M. Worton, 

Deputy Attorney General, were on the briefs for intervenor 

Paula T. Dow, Attorney General of New Jersey. 

Before: TATEL and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges, and 

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL. 

TATEL, Circuit Judge: Consolidated Rail Corporation 

(Conrail) sold its Harsimus Embankment in Jersey City to 

developers. The City, together with others interested in the 

historic and environmental value of the Embankment, sued 

Conrail, alleging that the sale was unlawful because Conrail 

failed to obtain authority from the Surface Transportation 

Board to abandon the property. The district court, which has 

jurisdiction over this case because of the unique nature of the 

Harsimus Branch—it was transferred to Conrail as part of the 

Penn Central bankruptcy—dismissed the case for lack of 

standing. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we reverse. 

I. 

The Harsimus Embankment is a six-block, half-mile long 

stone structure in the heart of Jersey City’s historic 

downtown. Made of maroonish-brown ashlar, the edifice 

carries seven rail lines as high as twenty-seven feet above 

street level. Constructed from 1901 to 1905, these lines served 

the Pennsylvania Railroad for decades, but as the twentieth 

century wore on, traffic dwindled, and dwindled, and perhaps 

inevitably, on a probably-unremarkable day in the early 

1990s, the last train ever to use the line came and went. Built 

to be an artery in shipping and commerce, the Embankment—

once a symbol of modernity—is now covered in foliage and 

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stands, somewhat ironically, as a quaint memorial to a bygone 

era, a verdant holdout against modern urban sprawl. 

A place like that is bound to draw attention. The 

Embankment presents an opportunity for developers who see 

new and more profitable uses for the land—in this case, the 

developers (LLCs) to whom Conrail sold the property. At the 

same time, the Embankment attracts those who see its rustic 

qualities and historic value as irreplaceable—here the City of 

Jersey City, the Rails to Trails Conservancy, and the 

Pennsylvania Railroad Harsimus Stem Embankment 

Preservation Coalition. 

To explain why a dispute over six blocks of property in 

New Jersey has ended up in the United States Court of 

Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit—indeed, for the 

second time—we begin with some regulatory background. 

The Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act 

requires that rail carriers obtain Surface Transportation Board 

(STB) approval before “abandon[ing] any part of its railroad 

lines.” 49 U.S.C. § 10903(a). By contrast, carriers need no 

such approval for “spur, industrial, team, switching, or side 

tracks.” 49 U.SC. § 10906; see also 49 U.S.C. § 11323(a)(2) 

(listing transactions which “may be carried out only with the 

approval and authorization of the Board”). Ordinarily, STB 

decides whether tracks qualify as “railroad line” and thus 

require abandonment authorization. See 49 U.S.C. § 10903(a). 

This, however, is not an ordinary case. In 1968, the 

Pennsylvania Railroad, of which the Harsimus Branch was a 

small part, merged with a rival to form the Penn Central 

Transportation Company. By the early 1970s, the Penn 

Central, along with eight other major railroads, filed for 

bankruptcy, precipitating a “rail transportation crisis.” See 

Blanchette v. Conn. Gen. Ins. Corps., 419 U.S. 102, 108 

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(1974). In response, Congress enacted the Regional Rail 

Reorganization Act of 1973, which established two new 

entities: one to reorganize the railroad system, the United 

States Railway Association (USRA); and the other to own and 

operate the reorganized system, Conrail, a railroad 

headquartered in Philadelphia. See Consol. Rail Corp. v. 

Surface Transp. Bd., 571 F.3d 13, 14–15 (D.C. Cir. 2009) 

(“Conrail I”). In 1975, USRA published a Final System Plan 

that, among other things, formally transferred the bankrupt 

carriers’ rail properties to Conrail. The Harsimus Branch was 

one such property. The Rail Act also created a “special court” 

with exclusive jurisdiction over disputes relating to the Final 

System Plan, 45 U.S.C. § 719, including responsibility for 

determining whether tracks conveyed to Conrail by the Plan 

qualify as “railroad line,” which Conrail could not abandon 

without STB authorization. See generally id. Congress later 

abolished that court and transferred its “jurisdiction and other 

functions” to the United States District Court for the District 

of Columbia. Id. § 719(b)(2). 

With this background in mind, we return to the facts of 

the case. In the late 1990s, Conrail began discussions with the 

Jersey City Redevelopment Authority about redeveloping the 

Harsimus Embankment for residential housing. These 

redevelopment plans were blocked, however, when a group of 

citizens successfully petitioned the State of New Jersey to 

have most of the Embankment designated as a “historic 

place” in the New Jersey State Register of Historic Places. In 

early 2003, after Conrail formally put the property out for bid, 

the City passed an ordinance designating the Embankment as 

a “historic landmark,” meaning that the property could be 

developed only with the consent of the Jersey City Historic 

Preservation Commission. 

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Conrail began negotiating with SLH Holdings Company 

to sell the Embankment to the LLCs, which SLH had formed 

for that purpose. Soon thereafter, the City sent Conrail a letter 

proposing to “open up a dialogue” to have a public entity 

acquire the property. City of Jersey City v. Consol. Rail Corp., 

741 F. Supp. 2d 131, 135 (D.D.C. 2010). In 2004, Jersey City 

passed an ordinance authorizing the City to purchase or 

condemn the Embankment. Subsequently, however, the City’s 

lawyers advised it that it could neither purchase nor condemn 

the Harsimus Embankment because it was “railroad line” that 

Conrail could lawfully abandon only with STB authorization. 

Having received no offer from the City, Conrail, believing 

that the Harsimus Branch qualified as “spur, industrial, team, 

switching, or side tracks” that it could abandon without STB 

approval, sold the Harsimus Embankment to the LLCs. 

When the LLCs began dismantling the tracks and other 

rail structures, the City petitioned STB for a declaratory order 

that Conrail’s sale was void because the Embankment was 

“railroad line” requiring STB abandonment authorization. 

Although STB agreed with the City, we vacated that decision 

in Conrail I, holding that because the dispute related to 

property transferred pursuant to the Final System Plan, it fell 

within the “original and exclusive jurisdiction” of the special 

court, now the U.S. District Court for the District of 

Columbia. Conrail I, 571 F.3d at 19–20. 

Accordingly, the City, joined by Rails to Trails 

Conservancy and the Pennsylvania Railroad Harsimus Stem 

Embankment Preservation Coalition, filed a complaint in the 

district court, arguing again that Conrail’s sale of the 

Harsimus Embankment was void because it had failed to 

obtain STB abandonment authority. The LLCs intervened as 

defendants. The district court dismissed the complaint for lack 

of standing because, among other things, “plaintiffs have not 

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established that judicial intervention here would tangibly 

benefit Jersey City in its efforts to acquire the property 

through condemnation.” City of Jersey City, 741 F. Supp. 2d 

at 141. 

The City and environmental plaintiffs now appeal. Our 

review is de novo. See, e.g., Equal Rights Ctr. v. Post Props., 

Inc., 633 F.3d 1136, 1138 (D.C. Cir. 2011). 

II. 

For plaintiffs to establish Article III standing, at least one 

must demonstrate that it has suffered an injury that is 

“concrete and particularized” as well as “actual or imminent.” 

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992); 

Mountain States Legal Found. v. Glickman, 92 F.3d 1228, 

1232 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (“[I]f constitutional and prudential 

standing can be shown for at least one plaintiff, we need not 

consider the standing of the other plaintiffs to raise that 

claim.”). That “injury must be fairly traceable to the 

challenged action of the defendant, and likely to be redressed 

by a favorable decision.” Ord v. District of Columbia, 587 

F.3d 1136, 1140 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). At this stage of the litigation, we “must accept as 

true all material allegations of the complaint, drawing all 

reasonable inferences from those allegations in plaintiffs’ 

favor.” LaRoque v. Holder, 650 F.3d 777, 785 (D.C. Cir. 

2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). And critical to the 

issue before us, we must assume that plaintiffs will prevail on 

the merits of their claims—here that the Harsimus 

Embankment is “railroad line” requiring STB abandonment 

authorization. See Muir v. Navy Fed. Credit Union, 529 F.3d 

1100, 1105 (D.C. Cir. 2008). 

 In support of its claim for standing, the City argues that 

because of its interest in the historic and environmental value 

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of the property, it wishes to acquire the Harsimus 

Embankment, or at least to minimize any harm to the 

property. According to the City, STB proceedings offer an 

array of benefits that protect these interests—i.e., redress its 

injury. First, STB can place conditions on its abandonment 

authorization. For example, STB administers a statute under 

which parties can seek “public use conditions,” which afford 

local governments an opportunity to acquire railroad lines 

before they are sold to developers. See 49 U.S.C. § 10905. In 

addition, the National Environmental Policy Act and National 

Historic Preservation Act reviews that are part of STB’s 

process are designed to preserve and protect historic 

properties like the Embankment. These reviews can inform 

the conditions that STB imposes, which can in turn protect the 

City’s interests in the historic and environmental value of the 

property. See 16 U.S.C. § 470f (requiring agency to “take into 

account” adverse impacts on properties listed or eligible for 

listing on the National Register of Historic Places prior to the 

issuance of an abandonment license); Ill. Commerce Comm’n 

v. ICC, 848 F.2d 1246, 1259 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (the National 

Environmental Protection Act, 42 U.S.C. § 4321, et seq., 

requires the STB to take a “hard look” at environmental 

consequences of its action); see also Consol. Rail Corp. v.

ICC, 29 F.3d 706, 713 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (“There is no 

restriction placed on the conditions the [agency] can impose 

other than that they must be required by the public 

convenience and necessity.”). Second, New Jersey has a 

“right of first refusal statute,” which, once STB authorizes 

abandonment, would give the City an exclusive ninety-day 

window to decide whether it wants to acquire the abandoned 

property. See N.J. Stat. Ann. § 48:12-125.1(b). Finally, STB 

abandonment authority would permit Jersey City to use its 

general condemnation power to acquire the property. Without 

STB authorization, however, the City would, if the track is 

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indeed “railroad line,” be preempted and could not lawfully 

acquire the property. See 49 U.S.C. § 10501(b). 

The City contends that it is injured because Conrail’s 

refusal to seek STB abandonment authority has deprived it of 

these protections. Given this, and given that for purposes of 

standing we must assume that Conrail needs STB 

authorization before abandoning the property, we have little 

trouble concluding that the City enjoys Article III standing. 

Conrail’s refusal to invoke STB proceedings injures the City 

by depriving it of the benefits of those proceedings—namely, 

the opportunity to acquire or protect the property—and the 

City’s injury can be redressed by a district court ruling that 

the Embankment qualifies as “railroad line” that Conrail may 

not abandon without STB approval. 

Insisting that the City nonetheless lacks standing, Conrail 

argues that the City failed to express a sufficiently “firm 

intention” to purchase the Embankment. See Summers v. 

Earth Island Inst., 555 U.S. 488, 496 (2009) (plaintiffs’ 

affidavit did not assert “any firm intention to visit” locations 

where government might damage forests). It argues that 

nowhere in the City’s declarations is there any commitment to 

acquire the property; instead, the City has demonstrated only 

a vague desire that it “wants” to acquire the property at some 

point in the future. This, Conrail argues, is insufficiently 

concrete to support Article III standing. 

This argument gives short shrift to the record before us. 

Not only does the record contain affidavits from the City’s 

Mayor and City Planning Director declaring the City’s strong 

interest in acquiring and preserving the Embankment, but the 

City passed an ordinance providing that “[t]he Corporation 

Counsel of the City of Jersey City . . . and the Business 

Administrator are authorized and directed to undertake any 

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actions and execute any documents necessary or appropriate 

to acquire the property either by purchase or condemnation in 

accordance with [New Jersey law].” Ordinance of Jersey City, 

N.J. 04-096. The City even hired an eminent domain attorney 

to pursue available state remedies. Taken together, this 

evidence is more than sufficient to establish the “substantial 

probability of imminent injury required for Article III 

standing.” LaRoque, 650 F.3d at 788 (internal quotation 

marks omitted) (finding that a candidate’s “allegation [in 

April 2010] that he intended to run in the November 2011 

election and his public announcement at the press conference” 

were sufficient to establish imminence). 

Next, Conrail argues that even if the City had a firm 

intention of acquiring the property, its injury is “selfinflicted,” Appellees’ Br. 22, because it twice declined to bid 

on the property. But the fact that the City could have 

purchased the property in no way absolves Conrail of its legal 

duty—which, again, we must assume for purposes of 

standing—to seek STB authority to abandon the Harsimus 

Branch before selling it to the LLCs. 

The City’s injury is also self-inflicted, Conrail argues, 

because “the only impediment to the City’s ability to initiate 

condemnation proceedings is its own litigation posture.” Id. at 

23. But the City’s “litigation posture” represents its good faith 

position, based on the advice of counsel, that Conrail must 

obtain STB abandonment authority before the City may 

lawfully acquire or condemn the Harsimus Embankment. Of 

course, Conrail has a different “litigation posture”: it argues, 

also in good faith and on the advice of counsel, that no such 

abandonment authority is necessary. This debate, however, is 

about the merits of the issue the City seeks to litigate and has 

nothing at all to do with whether the City has Article III 

standing. That question turns solely on whether, assuming the 

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validity of the City’s position, Conrail’s refusal to seek STB 

abandonment authority injures the City and whether that 

injury is traceable to Conrail’s refusal and redressable by the 

court. As explained above, all three requirements are satisfied. 

Putting a slight twist on its argument, Conrail claims that 

the City should seize the property anyway and that even if 

such an action is unlawful, the City would suffer no concrete 

injury because it has not “identified anyone who could 

reasonably be expected to attack the City’s title on the basis 

of the jurisdictional status of the property.” Id. at 26 

(emphasis omitted). To be sure, when plaintiffs sue to void 

criminal statutes, we require a credible threat of prosecution 

to satisfy the imminence element of Article III standing. See

Navegar, Inc. v. United States, 103 F.3d 994 (D.C. Cir. 1997); 

Seegars v. Ashcroft, 396 F.3d 1248 (D.C. Cir. 2005). But here 

the City does not seek to challenge a criminal statute that may 

never be applied to it. Instead, suing under a federal statute 

that offers it an array of rights and benefits, it seeks to void an 

allegedly unlawful sale of railroad line that threatens its 

interests in the historic and environmental value of that 

property. In that context, the City’s refusal to invade federal 

jurisdiction and engage in unlawful self-help can hardly 

deprive it of standing. Cf. Shays v. FEC, 414 F.3d 76, 89 

(D.C. Cir. 2005) (“But because being put to the choice of 

either violating BCRA or suffering disadvantage in their 

campaigns is itself a predicament the statute spares them, 

having to make that choice constitutes Article III injury.”). 

III.

 For the foregoing reasons, we reverse and remand for 

further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

So ordered. 

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