Sus.
It's not that the Mendocino Railway isn't an actual railway. It is. It's got train tracks and a locomotive, after all.
But it want to seize some private property via eminent domain. Property belonging to someone else.
Now, apparently, you can do that if you're a common carrier. That itself seems super dubious to me, honestly. I would have thought that you'd have to get permission of the relevant governmental body first. But here in California, at least, if you're a legitimate railroad that carries people and freight or stuff, you can just grab anyone else's property if you want, as long as it's part of your legitimate business.
Okay. I'm not really down for that, if truth be told. But apparently that's the rule.
So the Mendocino Railway has to prove that it's a common carrier. Which, as a purely legal matter, it's totally not -- and the trial court so held -- since it doesn't even own the railway, which actually belongs to some subsidiaries or affiliate companies.
No matter, says the Court of Appeal. That's good enough.
Okay, I guess. But even those subsidiaries still have to be common carriers, which means it's open to the public for passengers and freight and stuff and to which "the public has a
legal right to [] use, which cannot be gainsaid, or denied, or withdrawn at
the pleasure of the owner." But the railway here doesn't really do that. It's not connected to anything else: the tracks exist, but Mendocino hasn't bothered to maintain that connection. And the relevant railway tunnel has also collapsed, and Mendocino doesn't feel like fixing it.
So what does the railway actually do? I looked it up. This. The company has an old-timey steam locomotive that tourists ride around in. Choo-choo and stuff. Where are they going? Nowhere, really. Except maybe to this bar that the "railway" owns in the middle of nowhere. You know. Tourist stuff.
So does that really make the railway a common carrier? Well, it says it also transports actual people. And, theoretically, yeah, it does. Look at this -- something that's not mentioned in the opinion. The company only carries "regular people" if you're one of the 50 or so specific people identified by name on its tariff who live in the area. And those alleged "train ticket" prices are absurdly high anyway. Which is perhaps why, as far as I can tell from the opinion, anyway, no one uses the train for actual transportation.
But what about freight? Doesn't anyone use it for freight? Not really -- though a couple of places wrote letters and said they "might" use it for freight in the future. You'll perhaps get a keen sense for how critical the freight usage of this train is from the last page of the company's freight tariff, which says: "Locomotives and freight equipment can be rented subject to FREIGT TARIFF CWR 9500" (Yes, that's how they actually spell 'freight") Oh, and the company says that if you want to actually use these sorts of passenger or freight services, here is how you should reach them: "Inquiries . . . should be directed to Info@SkunkTrian.com." They don't even spell "train" correctly.
But at least they want to take other people's property for a good reason, right -- in legalese, for an actual "public purpose". The company says that it needs the 20 acres to build "storage
yards, maintenance, and repair shops, transload facilities, rail car storage
capacity, and a passenger depot." But the internal plans that they actual drew up show the property instead being used . . . as a campground, pool, and parking lot for recreational vehicles. "Oh," says the company. "That was a rogue employee. Those aren't really our plans." Yeah. Right.
I completely understand why the trial court held what it held. As an outside observer, at least, there's just nothing about this whole seizure -- or process -- that sounds kosher.
But the Court of Appeal reverses. The company gets to seize someone else's property: the 20 acres right next to their residential home, no less.
Sus.
P.S. - Also, this may not be Justice Langhorne Wilson's fault, but on page 4 of the opinion, the correct spelling is actually "Amtrak," not "Amtrack".
