Court Opinion

ID: 9370398
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-13 14:00:31.806789+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:21.490991
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-1277    Document: 57    Page: 1   Filed: 02/13/2023

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

   DAVID H. BEHRENS, ARLINE M. BEHRENS, ET
                     AL.
                  Plaintiffs

    MARK W. HEINTZ, HELEN M. HEINTZ, ET AL.
               Plaintiffs-Appellants

                            v.

                   UNITED STATES,
                   Defendant-Appellee
                 ______________________

                       2022-1277
                 ______________________

    Appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims
 in No. 1:15-cv-00421-PEC, Judge Patricia E. Campbell-
 Smith.
                 ______________________

                Decided: February 13, 2023
                 ______________________

     THOMAS SCOTT STEWART, Stewart Wald & McCulley,
 LLC, Kansas City, MO, argued for plaintiffs-appellants.
 Also represented by ELIZABETH MCCULLEY, REED RIPLEY.

    JOHN LUTHER SMELTZER, Appellate Section, Environ-
 ment & Natural Resources Division, United States Depart-
 ment of Justice, Washington, DC, argued for defendant-
 appellee. Also represented by TODD KIM, ERIKA KRANZ,
Case: 22-1277    Document: 57     Page: 2    Filed: 02/13/2023

 2                                             BEHRENS   v. US

 WILLIAM B. LAZARUS.

     MARK F. HEARNE, II, True North Law Group, LLC, St.
 Louis, MO, for amicus curiae James W. Ely, Jr. Also rep-
 resented by STEPHEN S. DAVIS.

     MEGHAN S. LARGENT, Lewis Rice LLC, St. Louis MO,
 for amicus curiae Missouri Farm Bureau Federation. Also
 represented by MICHAEL ARMSTRONG, LINDSAY BRINTON.
                  ______________________

     Before DYK, TARANTO, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.
 DYK, Circuit Judge.
     Appellants are property owners seeking compensation
 for an alleged taking pursuant to the National Trails Sys-
 tem Act (“Trails Act”), Pub. L. No. 90-543, 82 Stat. 919
 (1968) (codified as amended at 16 U.S.C. §§ 1241–51). The
 issuance of a Notice of Interim Trail Use (“NITU”) allowing
 interim trail use and railbanking constitutes a Fifth
 Amendment taking if the railroad had been granted an
 easement, interim trail use and railbanking were beyond
 the scope of the easement, and the NITU caused a delay in
 termination of the easement. The Court of Federal Claims
 (“Claims Court”) found that the property interests at issue
 were easements, but that interim trail use was within the
 scope of the easements. We hold that the Claims Court
 erred in interpreting Missouri law and in concluding that
 interim trail use was within the scope of the easements.
 We also hold that railbanking is not within the scope of the
 easements. There being no causation dispute, the NITU
 issuance constituted a taking. We reverse and remand.
                        BACKGROUND
                              I
     When a railroad wishes to relinquish responsibility
 over a railroad corridor, it must seek permission to
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 BEHRENS   v. US                                                3

 abandon the corridor. 49 U.S.C. § 10903; see also id.
 § 10502 (authorizing exemptions). Under the Trails Act,
 before abandonment is consummated, other entities can in-
 tervene to railbank the corridor, that is, preserve it for fu-
 ture railroad use. 16 U.S.C. § 1247(d); see also 49 C.F.R.
 § 1152.29(a). The railbanking intervention process, as au-
 thorized by § 1247(d), allows a railroad to negotiate with
 the intervening entity, which would then assume financial
 and managerial responsibility for the corridor by operating
 it as a recreational trail. See Preseault v. Interstate Com.
 Comm’n, 494 U.S. 1, 6–7 (1990) (“Preseault I”).
      Before the potential trail operator can begin negotia-
 tions with the railroad, it must file a railbanking petition.
 See 49 C.F.R. § 1152.29(a). The potential trail operator
 must state its “willingness to assume full responsibility for[
 m]anaging the right-of-way; [a]ny legal liability arising out
 of the transfer or use of the right-of-way . . . ; and [t]he pay-
 ment of any and all taxes . . . [on] the right-of-way.” Id.
 § 1152.29(a)(2) (subsection numbers omitted). The opera-
 tor must also acknowledge that the land will remain “sub-
 ject to possible future reconstruction and reactivation of
 the right-of-way for rail service.” Id. § 1152.29(a)(3).
     If the railbanking petition meets [certain] criteria,
     and the railroad agrees to negotiate with the peti-
     tioner and . . . communicates [that agreement] to
     the [Surface Transportation Board (“STB”)] within
     ten days of the filing of the trail use petition, the
     STB will issue a [NITU]. This NITU permits the
     railroad to discontinue service, cancel tariffs, and
     salvage track and other equipment, “consistent
     with interim trail use and rail banking” without
     consummating an abandonment and the NITU ex-
     tends indefinitely to permit interim trail use once
     an “agreement” is reached between the railroad
     and the trail operator.
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 4                                                  BEHRENS   v. US

 Caldwell v. United States, 391 F.3d 1226, 1230 (Fed. Cir.
 2004) (quoting 49 C.F.R. § 1152.29(d)(1)) (citing 49 C.F.R.
 § 1152.29(b)(2), (d)). The Trails Act authorizes the suspen-
 sion of abandonment, providing “if such interim [trail] use
 is subject to restoration or reconstruction for railroad pur-
 poses, such use shall not be treated, for purposes of any law
 or rule of law, as an abandonment of the use of such rights-
 of-way for railroad purposes.” § 1247(d).
     It is now well-settled that the issuance of a NITU under
 the Trails Act may result in a taking of property owned by
 the original grantor of the easement. The Supreme Court
 noted in Preseault I that:
     [The] language [of § 1247(d)] gives rise to a takings
     question in the typical rails-to-trails case because
     many railroads do not own their rights-of-way out-
     right but rather hold them under easements or
     similar property interests. While the terms of
     these easements and applicable state law vary, fre-
     quently the easements provide that the property
     reverts to the abutting landowner upon abandon-
     ment of rail operations. State law generally gov-
     erns the disposition of reversionary interests . . . .
     By deeming interim trail use to be like discontinu-
     ance rather than abandonment, Congress pre-
     vented property interests from reverting under
     state law[.]
 Preseault I, 494 U.S. at 8 (citations omitted). In general,
 “[a] Fifth Amendment taking occurs if the original ease-
 ment granted to the railroad under state property law is
 not broad enough to encompass a recreational trail.” Cald-
 well, 391 F.3d at 1229 (citations omitted). As we discussed
 in Preseault v. United States, if the “establishment [of a
 public recreational trail] [can]not be justified under the
 terms and within the scope of the existing easements[,] . . .
 [t]he taking of possession of . . . lands . . . for use as a public
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 BEHRENS   v. US                                            5

 trail [is] in effect a taking of a new easement for that new
 use, for which . . . landowners are entitled to compensa-
 tion.” 100 F.3d 1525, 1550 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (“Preseault II”)
 (en banc) (plurality opinion). A taking effectuated by the
 NITU occurs at the time that, had there been no NITU, the
 easement would have terminated under state law. See
 Caquelin v. United States, 959 F.3d 1360, 1363, 1370–73
 (Fed. Cir. 2020).
     Over the past thirty years, following our decision in
 Preseault II, we have considered a variety of cases alleging
 Fifth Amendment takings in this rails-to-trails context.
 See, e.g., Hardy v. United States, 965 F.3d 1338 (Fed. Cir.
 2020); Ladd v. United States, 630 F.3d 1015 (Fed. Cir.
 2010); Hash v. United States, 403 F.3d 1308 (Fed. Cir.
 2005); Toews v. United States, 376 F.3d 1371 (Fed. Cir.
 2004). These cases depend on state law and the facts of the
 particular land grants.
                              II
      This appeal concerns a 144.3-mile corridor (“Corridor”)
 utilized by the St. Louis, Kansas City, and Chicago Rail-
 road Company (“Railroad Company”) beginning in the
 early 1900s for the operation of a railroad. The necessary
 easements were acquired through a mix of condemnations
 and land grants from property owners. At issue in this ap-
 peal are nineteen source deeds conveying easements as to
 properties located along the Corridor. These easements
 were granted to the Railroad Company between January
 1901 and April 1902, each for the consideration of one dol-
 lar. Plaintiff-appellants are the owners of these underlying
 properties and are collectively referred to as Behrens.
 Eighteen of the deeds did not state a limitation of the grant
 to use for railroad purposes. One deed (the “Second Back-
 ues Deed”), which may or may not be the subject of a tak-
 ings claim, see note 10, infra, specified that the land is
 “conveyed to said Railroad company for the purpose of side
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 6                                             BEHRENS   v. US

 tracks, station houses, ware houses, stock yards, and for
 such uses as are necessary in the operation of said Rail-
 road.” J.A. 2335.
     These easements were passed on to different railroads
 throughout the years. Most recently, the easements were
 conveyed to the Missouri Central Railroad Company which
 then leased the operating rights to Central Midland Rail-
 way Company. Missouri Central Railroad and Central
 Midland Railway wished to discontinue service on and
 abandon the railway and filed a verified notice of exemp-
 tion that, if granted, would allow the railroads to consum-
 mate abandonment.
     On December 16, 2014, the Missouri Department of
 Natural Resources filed a timely request to intervene in the
 abandonment proceeding, seeking to utilize the easements
 for interim trail use on the Corridor. On February 26,
 2015, the STB issued a NITU for the corridor. On Decem-
 ber 20, 2019, the Missouri Central Railroad and the Natu-
 ral Resources Department jointly notified the STB that
 they had executed a trail use agreement in accordance with
 the NITU and STB regulations.
                              III
     Plaintiffs filed takings claims on April 27, 2015, in the
 Claims Court. 1 Plaintiffs moved for summary judgment on
 liability, asserting that the railroad originally acquired
 mere easements, pursuant to Missouri law; that the rail-
 road’s easements were limited to railroad purposes; and
 that the conversion of the easements for a public recrea-
 tional trail was beyond the scope of easements, and thus
 constituted a taking. The government then cross-moved
 for summary judgment on the ground that the deeds

     1    This case also involved other properties that are
 not at issue in this appeal.
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 BEHRENS   v. US                                              7

 granted an easement broad enough to allow for interim
 trail use and railbanking.
     The Claims Court held that the property rights ac-
 quired by the railroad here on appeal were easements but
 that the government was not liable for a taking as to those
 parcels because the easements allowed interim trail use.
 Addressing a Missouri statute that is central to this case,
 the Claims Court “decline[d] to apply the presumption”
 “that any conveyance of an easement to a railroad made by
 voluntary grant . . . is statutorily limited in scope to rail-
 road purposes only.” J.A. 5–6 (citation omitted).
      Plaintiffs filed a motion for reconsideration. The
 Claims Court set aside the grant of summary judgment in
 favor of the government because “imprecise language [in
 the original opinion] implie[d] that the easements [were]
 ‘unlimited’” and noted that “it must . . . more carefully de-
 fine the scope of the . . . easements” in further proceedings.
 J.A. 22. After further proceedings regarding the scope of
 the easements, the Claims Court again held that the gov-
 ernment was not liable for a taking because the easements,
 while not unlimited, were nonetheless broad enough to al-
 low interim trail use. The Claims Court so held because “it
 would violate the primacy of the grantor’s intent to find
 that the deeds—which otherwise appear to convey a fee in-
 terest—should be artificially limited to plaintiffs’ definition
 of railroad purposes simply because Missouri law construes
 conveyances for nominal consideration to be easements.”
 J.A. 40. The Claims Court also concluded that “the broad
 granting language and habendum clauses in the deeds at
 issue are convincing evidence that the grantors intended
 unrestricted conveyances.” J.A. 39.
      In the course of proceedings in the Claims Court, plain-
 tiffs also filed various motions for summary judgment on
 the alternative ground that the government was liable for
 a taking because the Missouri Central Railroad abandoned
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 8                                             BEHRENS   v. US

 the easement prior to the NITU. The Claims Court found
 various procedural shortcomings with these motions and
 never decided the issue of abandonment, ultimately hold-
 ing that an abandonment claim was forfeited because
 plaintiffs failed to timely raise the issue in a summary
 judgment motion.
     After the deadline for filing summary judgment mo-
 tions had passed, the parties jointly moved for an entry of
 judgment under Rule 54(b) of the Rules of the Court of Fed-
 eral Claims on the easements here on appeal. 2 The Claims
 Court granted the motion. Plaintiffs timely appealed. We
 have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3). We
 review the grant of summary judgment de novo. Ladd, 630
 F.3d at 1019.
                       DISCUSSION
     As described above, “[i]t is settled law that a Fifth
 Amendment taking occurs in Rails-to-Trails cases when
 government action destroys state-defined property rights
 by converting a railway easement to a recreational trail, if
 trail use is outside the scope of the original railway ease-
 ment.” Ladd, 630 F.3d at 1019 (citing Ellamae Phillips Co.
 v. United States, 564 F.3d 1367, 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2009)). The
 language of the deed and state law govern the scope of the
 easement. See Preseault II, 100 F.3d at 1533.
     Under Preseault II, the first step in determining if
 there was a taking is to determine if a railroad had ob-
 tained easements or fee simple estates. See id. In this
 case, it is undisputed that the Missouri Central Railroad
 had easements and not fee simple interests. See Gov’t’s

     2   The Rule 54(b) motion was necessary because other
 parcels of land remained in the case before the Claims
 Court.
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 BEHRENS   v. US                                              9

 Br. 33. A Missouri statute that has been in effect since
 1855 gives railroads the power:
     [t]o take and hold such voluntary grants of real es-
     tate and other property as shall be made to it to aid
     in the construction, maintenance and accommoda-
     tion of its railroads; but the real estate received by
     voluntary grant shall be held and used for the pur-
     pose of such grant only . . . .
 Mo. Rev. Stat. § 1035 (1899), now § 388.210(2). Under Mis-
 souri law, a conveyance of property to a railroad for nomi-
 nal consideration is treated as a voluntary grant, and one
 dollar is nominal consideration. Brown v. Weare, 152
 S.W.2d 649, 653–54 (Mo. 1941). Each grant in this case
 was to a railroad and for one dollar. These conveyances
 were thus voluntary grants. Voluntary grants to railroads
 are easements even if they are formally worded as grants
 of fee simple estates. Id. at 654; see also Boyles v. Mo.
 Friends of Wabash Trace Nature Trail, Inc., 981 S.W.2d
 644, 648 (Mo. Ct. App. 1998) (“Where the acquisition is for
 right-of-way only, however, whether by condemnation, vol-
 untary grant, or conveyance in fee upon valuable consider-
 ation, the railroad takes only an easement over the land
 and not the fee.” (citations omitted)). Therefore, as the
 Claims Court held, each grant was an easement, and the
 government does not argue otherwise.
      The second step is determining the scope of the ease-
 ments. See Preseault II, 100 F.3d at 1533. The government
 seeks to defend the Claims Court decision arguing that the
 statute does not define the scope of the easements and that
 under Missouri common law, the court must give effect to
 the intention of the grantor. “It is well settled in [Missouri]
 that the rule to be observed in the construction of deeds is
 to ascertain the intention of the grantor, and to give effect
 to such intention, unless it conflicts with some positive rule
 of law.” St. Louis Union Tr. Co. v. Clarke, 178 S.W.2d 359,
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 10                                             BEHRENS   v. US

 363 (Mo. 1944) (en banc). Under Missouri law, an ease-
 ment is “a right to use the land for particular purposes.”
 Barfield v. Sho-Me Power Elec. Coop., 852 F.3d 795, 799
 (8th Cir. 2017) (citation omitted) (quoting St. Charles Cnty.
 v. Laclede Gas Co., 356 S.W.3d 137, 139 (Mo. 2011) (en
 banc)). In the case of eighteen of the nineteen deeds at is-
 sue, the deeds themselves contain no language stating a
 limitation of the grant to specified purposes. It follows, ar-
 gues the government, that the Claims Court correctly
 found that the easements granted to the railroad were
 broad in scope and covered trail use. The plaintiffs here
 disagree as to the appropriate construction of the deeds un-
 der common law. We need not resolve this dispute because
 we conclude that the Missouri statutory provision,
 § 388.210(2) explicitly limits the scope of the easements to
 railroad purposes.
     The Missouri statute states that a voluntary grant
 “shall be held and used for the purpose of such grant only.”
 Mo. Rev. St. § 388.210(2). The statute defines the purpose
 of such voluntary grants as “to aid in the construction,
 maintenance and accommodation of its railroads.” Id. The
 Missouri Supreme Court has construed this language to
 mean that such grants are for “all railroad purposes.”
 Brown, 152 S.W.2d at 653 (stating that this statutory pro-
 vision “includes all railroad purposes”); see also id. at 654
 (“The statute makes no distinction according to the exact
 railroad purpose for which the land is to be used but in ef-
 fect requires only that the land be used for railroad pur-
 poses.”). “[The] easement ceases to exist when the land is
 no longer used for railroad purposes.” G.M. Morris Boat
 Co. v. Bishop, 631 S.W.2d 84, 87 (Mo. Ct. App. 1982) (citing
 Coates & Hopkins Realty Co. v. Kan. City Terminal Ry. Co.,
 43 S.W.2d 817, 821–22 (Mo. 1931) (en banc)). Therefore,
 by statute, railroad purposes are the only allowable pur-
 poses of the granted easements and define the scope of the
 easements.
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 BEHRENS   v. US                                            11

      We must then determine whether trail use and rail-
 banking are within the scope of the easements, i.e.,
 whether (1) trail use and (2) railbanking are railroad pur-
 poses. In Missouri, trail use, the first of these uses, is not
 a railroad purpose. Boyles is a leading Missouri case on the
 scope of railroad easements. 981 S.W.2d 644. A Missouri
 constitutional provision states that properties taken by the
 railroad by condemnation are taken “for railroad pur-
 poses.” Id. at 648 (quoting Mo. Const. art. I, § 26). In
 Boyles, a railroad acquired an easement through condem-
 nation. Id. at 646. The railroad thereafter conveyed the
 contested railroad corridor easement via a quit claim deed
 to an organization that undertook to turn the corridor into
 a trail. Id. at 647. The original owners filed a petition to
 quiet title on the basis that the easement had ceased to ex-
 ist because it did not extend to trail use. Id. at 647–48. In
 interpreting the constitutional provision, the court con-
 cluded that trail use “do[es] not fall within the commonly
 understood meaning of ‘railroad purposes.’” Id. at 649. 3
     We have similarly and consistently held that trail use
 is not a railroad purpose under other states’ laws. See, e.g.,
 Presault II, 100 F.3d at 1541–44 (applying Vermont law);
 Toews, 376 F.3d at 1376 (applying California law and stat-
 ing that “it appears beyond cavil that use of these ease-
 ments for a recreational trail—for walking, hiking, biking,
 picnicking, frisbee playing, with newly-added tarmac

     3    See also Eureka Real Est. & Inv. v. S. Real Est. &
 Fin. Co., 200 S.W.2d 328, 332 (Mo. 1947) (finding that an
 easement granted to a railroad did not allow the construc-
 tion of a power line that had no connection to the railway);
 St. Louis, I.M. & S. Ry. Co. v. Cape Girardeau Bell Tel. Co.,
 114 S.W. 586, 587–88 (Mo. Ct. App. 1908) (finding that es-
 tablishing a telephone line for public use was beyond the
 scope of an easement granted to a railroad because the pub-
 lic telephone line was not a railroad purpose).
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 12                                              BEHRENS   v. US

 pavement, park benches, occasional billboards, and fences
 to enclose the trailway—is not the same use made by a rail-
 road, involving tracks, depots, and the running of trains”).
     The government argues, however, that the Trails Act
 has an alternative purpose—railbanking, the preservation
 of the right-of-way for possible future railroad use—and
 that the easements under the statute are broad enough to
 cover railbanking. The Trails Act provides that trails cre-
 ated under the Act must be “subject to restoration or recon-
 struction for railroad purposes.” 16 U.S.C. § 1247(d).
     Under Missouri law, establishing a nature trail for the
 purpose of keeping the corridor intact for future rail service
 is not considered a railroad purpose if there is no evidence
 that such future use is realistic. In Boyles, the court re-
 jected the argument that “because one of the purposes of
 the trail is to keep the existing corridor intact for transpor-
 tation needs that may occur in the future, such as reac-
 tivated rail service, [the easement’s] proposed use [as a
 trail] is for railroad purposes.” 4 Boyles, 981 S.W.2d at 649.
 The Boyles court found that this argument “ha[d] no merit”
 because “[t]he undisputed evidence, including the removal
 of the bridges, ties, and rail by [the railroad company],
 showed that no such [future railroad] use is realistic.” Id.
 at 649–50. The court also noted that “[t]he proposed devel-
 opment of a hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, and na-
 ture trail is completely unrelated to the operation of a
 railway and consistent only with an intent to wholly and
 permanently cease railway operations.” Id. at 650 (citation
 omitted).
     Thus, in Missouri, trail use with the purported but
 speculative purpose of preserving the right-of-way for

      4 Boyles did not concern a taking under the Trails
 Act. See Boyles, 981 S.W.2d at 646–48.
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 BEHRENS   v. US                                            13

 future railroad use does not fall within the scope of an ease-
 ment granted for railroad purposes. Here, there is no evi-
 dence that future rail use is realistic. The railroad ceased
 running trains over the Corridor decades ago, and rails and
 ties have been removed. There is no evidence of a plan for
 future railroad use. The mere preservation of a tract of
 land for possible future rail use under Boyles is not a rail-
 road purpose. 5
     The government argues that Boyles should not control
 here because it concerned rights acquired by condemna-
 tion, not voluntary grant. The government argues that
 “there is no basis for construing the [voluntary grant] stat-
 ute narrowly as limiting voluntary grants to railroads to
 railroad purposes alone.” Gov’t’s Br. 36. The government
 notes that the language in the two provisions, the constitu-
 tional provision at issue in Boyles and the statute at issue
 here, is different 6 and urges that the easements acquired

     5   The government argues that “nonuse [of the corri-
 dor by the railroad] alone will not cause an extinguishment
 of the easement,” Gov’t’s Br. 46, and that nonuse by the
 railroad is not sufficient to show that “interim trail use is
 beyond the scope of a railroad easement that has been
 properly preserved.” Gov’t’s Br. 47. However, the facts of
 this case show much more than nonuse. The Missouri Cen-
 tral Railroad started abandonment proceedings and thus
 specifically disclaimed all interests in the corridor.
     6   The constitutional provision governing land taken
 by railroads via condemnation reads: “The fee of land
 taken for railroad purposes without consent of the owner
 thereof shall remain in such owner subject to the use for
 which it is taken.” Mo. Const. art. I, § 26 (emphasis added).
 As explained in Boyles, this provision states that “railroad
 purposes” are the “use for which [the land] is taken.”
 Boyles, 981 S.W.2d at 648–49.
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 14                                             BEHRENS   v. US

 by voluntary grant should have a broader scope than those
 acquired by condemnation. Specifically, the government
 contends that “accommodation,” which appears in the vol-
 untary grant statute but not the condemnation provision,
 should be construed to mean something like “benefit,”
 which would go beyond use for strictly railroad purposes
 and cover easements that benefit the railroad more
 broadly. 7 The government argues that the railroad is ben-
 efited by preservation for future railroad use.
     We do not agree. The Missouri Supreme Court has sug-
 gested that “accommodation” means “operation.” See
 Brown, 152 S.W.2d at 653. 8 This appears to confirm that

      The voluntary grant statute gives railroads the power
 “[t]o take and hold such voluntary grants of real estate and
 other property as shall be made to it to aid in the construc-
 tion, maintenance and accommodation of its railroads; but
 the real estate received by voluntary grant shall be held
 and used for the purpose of such grant only.” Mo. Rev. Stat.
 § 388.210(2) (1949) (emphasis added).
      7   The government notes that, “[a]round the time of
 grants in this case, ‘accommodation’ was defined in legal
 dictionaries as a ‘convenience, favor, or benefit’ or ‘an ar-
 rangement or engagement made as a favor to another, not
 upon a consideration received.’” Gov’t’s Br. 34–35 (quoting
 Overland Auto Co. v. Winters, 210 S.W. 1, 4 (Mo. 1919) (ref-
 erencing contemporaneous definitions from Anderson’s
 Law Dictionary and Black’s Law Dictionary)).
      8   In Brown, the court stated that “[b]y statute a rail-
 road has the power ‘to take and hold such voluntary grants
 of real estate and other property as shall be made to it to
 aid in the construction, maintenance and accommodation
 [operation?] of its railroads; but the real estate received by
 voluntary grant shall be held and used for the purpose of
 such grant only.’” Brown, 152 S.W.2d at 653 (alteration in
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 BEHRENS   v. US                                             15

 the benefit must be to current or planned railroad opera-
 tions rather than to some speculative future use. The Mis-
 souri voluntary grant statute was not designed to grant
 easements to railroads going beyond current or planned
 railroad operations and the use of the term “accommoda-
 tion” does not suggest otherwise. An overly broad reading
 of the voluntary grant statute would indeed be contrary to
 the legislative purpose behind the statute. As the Missouri
 Supreme Court stated in Brown, “the legislature intended
 positively to interfere in the dealings of a railroad company
 with the landowners and to protect the latter if the railroad
 was never constructed, and also if the railroad company
 abandoned land acquired for its use.” Id. at 654. In any
 event, the accommodation provision is designed to benefit
 the railroad that owned the easement, not the benefit some
 future unidentified entity that might receive the easement
 in the future.
     We note that we have held that under Vermont law the
 preservation of a tract of land for future rail use under the
 Trails Act does not transform interim trail use into a rail-
 road purpose. See Preseault II, 100 F.3d at 1550. In Pre-
 seault II, a plurality concluded that if the creation of a
 public recreational trail “could not be justified under the
 terms and within the scope of the existing easements . . .
 the taking of possession of the lands . . . for use as a public
 trail was in effect a taking of a new easement for that new
 use, for which the landowners are entitled to compensa-
 tion.” Id.; see also Preseault II, 100 F.3d at 1554 (Rader, J.,
 concurring) (“The vague notion that the State may at some
 time in the future return the property to the use for which
 it was originally granted, does not override its present use
 of that property inconsistent with the easement.”).

 original) (quoting Mo. Rev. Stat. § 5128 (1939) (currently
 located at Mo. Ann. Stat. § 388.210 (West 2022))).
Case: 22-1277    Document: 57      Page: 16    Filed: 02/13/2023

 16                                             BEHRENS   v. US

                       CONCLUSION
     In sum, the easements granted to the railroad were not
 broad enough to encompass interim trail use or railbank-
 ing, and thus Fifth Amendment takings have occurred. We
 reverse the Claims Court and remand this case for further
 proceedings consistent with this opinion. 9 We do not reach
 the abandonment question, though we note that Behren’s
 failure to timely move for summary judgment cannot
 properly be viewed as a forfeiture of the abandonment the-
 ory which should have remained an issue in this case.

      9   Some of the deeds include additional grants beyond
 the primary grant to the railroad, which is a grant of a “cen-
 ter 100-foot portion of rail corridor.” J.A. 14. For example,
 one deed granted, with no express limitations to the scope,
 a right-of-way for “[a] strip of land one hundred (100) feet
 wide, having a uniform width of fifty (50) feet on each side
 of the center line of the railroad” (the primary grant).
 J.A. 2320. It also granted, “for the purpose of cuttings and
 embankments necessary for the proper construction and
 security of said railroad across the tracts of land described
 aforesaid,” an easement “[o]ne hundred (100) feet on each
 side of and adjacent to the aforesaid described right of way”
 (a non-primary grant), as well as “the right of entry across
 adjacent land of the undersigned for the purposes of con-
 struction of said railroad” (a non-primary grant). Id. Both
 parties appear to agree that primary grants are the only
 source of the takings claims, presumably because the other
 easements were not used for trails.
     There is one possible exception. This exception is the
 second Backues deed, which does not include a primary
 grant. We leave the issue of whether a taking occurred
 with regard to the second Backues deed to the Claims
 Court to determine on remand.
Case: 22-1277      Document: 57     Page: 17   Filed: 02/13/2023

 BEHRENS   v. US                                           17

 Given our holding as to the scope of the easement, the
 abandonment claim is, however, moot.
                REVERSED AND REMANDED
                            COSTS

 Costs to Appellants.