## Facts

- Chevy Chase Land Company conveyed a 100-foot-wide, approximately one-mile “right-of-way” corridor in 1911 to a railroad predecessor of the interest later acquired by Montgomery County.
- Decades later, rail operations on the Georgetown Branch corridor ceased, and in 1988 the railroad’s successor conveyed its interest in the corridor to Montgomery County.
- The corridor was converted for public hiker/biker trail use as part of a federal rails-to-trails program, including federal railbanking actions that prevented formal abandonment under federal railroad regulation.
- Chevy Chase Land Company and Columbia Country Club asserted that the 1911 deed conveyed only an easement limited to railroad purposes and that trail use either exceeded the easement’s scope or followed abandonment, triggering reversion and supporting compensation claims in a federal takings case.
- The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit certified Maryland property-law questions to the Court of Appeals of Maryland to determine the nature, scope, and abandonment status of the railroad interest.

## Issues

1. Under Maryland law, did the 1911 deed convey a fee simple absolute or an easement?
2. If it conveyed an easement, what limitations on scope apply as a matter of Maryland law and deed construction?
3. If it conveyed an easement, had the easement been abandoned under Maryland law, and if so, when?

## Decision

- The court held the 1911 “right-of-way” deed conveyed an easement, not a fee simple absolute.
- The court held the easement’s scope was broad enough to allow Montgomery County’s use of the corridor as a public hiker/biker trail.
- The court held the easement had not been abandoned as a matter of Maryland law.

## Legal Principles

- Deed construction focuses on the parties’ intent as expressed in the instrument, applying principles of contract interpretation and reading the deed as a whole.
- “Right-of-way” language in a railroad conveyance, especially in the granting clause and corridor-style description, generally indicates an easement absent clear words conveying a fee.
- The permissible scope of an easement is determined by the deed language and the purpose for which the easement was created; uses consistent with that purpose may be allowed even if they differ from historical operations.
- Abandonment of an easement under Maryland law requires nonuse plus intent to abandon; cessation of a particular use alone does not establish abandonment.
- Governmental and regulatory circumstances showing continued preservation and continued corridor use for transportation-related purposes may defeat a claim of abandonment.

## Conclusion

The Court of Appeals of Maryland answered the certified questions by construing the 1911 railroad “right-of-way” conveyance as an easement whose terms permitted conversion of the corridor to a public trail and by rejecting abandonment under Maryland law, leaving the landowners’ interests burdened by a continuing easement.


Chevy Chase Land Co. of Montgomery County v. United States, 355 Md. 110, 733 A.2d 1055 (Md. 1999)