Opinion ID: 1329866
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Let's Go for a Drive on the N & W

Text: The majority opinion, in stripping farmers, businesses, and landowners of their right to use the courts to protect themselves, relies upon language in Article XI, Section 9 of our Constitution that says railroads are public highways. The majority opinion, reversing the Dulin court, sub silentio, decides that railroads are public highways for purposes of the law of prescriptive easements, adverse possession, and equitable estoppel. So, if a railroad is really a public highway, then can I drive my car on the Norfolk and Western line, just like I do on Corridor G? If a railroad is really the same as a public highway, will the West Virginia State Police run radar on the CSX tracks to enforce posted track speed limits, just like they do on I-79? Most importantly, if a railroad is really a public highway, then when a railroad decides to sell a piece of its propertydo we, the public, get the money? To all of these questionsand to a dozen others that anyone can think ofthe answer is clearly no. Obviously, although the majority opinion ignores this principle, railroads are not public highways for all purposes. It is up to this Court, or the Legislature, to decide in which cases they are to be treated as public highways. And there is certainly not a word in our Constitution, or in any statute, saying that privately-owned railroad land is a public highway for purposes of prescriptive easement law. In Dulin, this Court, recognizing that railroads are not public highways for all purposes, used common sense and fairness in developing the common law of adverse possession. We concluded that the same broad protection from claims of adverse possession that we give to true publicly-owned highways need not be given to privately-owned railroad propertyespecially when the railroad's interests are in conflict with substantial property interests of other private parties. [2] This was a sound decision. D.