Norfolk Southern Railway Co. v. Dille Road Recycling, LLC, No. 22-4037 (6th Cir. 2024)
Annotate this Case
In this case, Norfolk Southern Railway Company and Dille Road Recycling, LLC disputed over a narrow parcel of land adjacent to Norfolk’s active rail line in Euclid, Ohio. Although Norfolk owned the land, Dille had been using it for nearly two decades. The parties took the matter to federal court after negotiations failed. Dille sought to claim the parcel through adverse possession or a prescriptive easement, while Norfolk argued that Dille’s property claims were preempted by the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act (ICCTA). The district court held that Dille’s prescriptive-easement claim was not preempted and granted Dille the easement.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the district court's decision, ruling that federal law preempted Dille’s state-law prescriptive-easement claim. The court determined that the easement Dille sought was so exclusive and conflicting that it was essentially adverse possession by another name. The court noted that while Dille claimed the easement was nonexclusive, the reality was that Dille's use of the parcel did not allow for shared use with Norfolk. The court also found that Dille's proposed use of the parcel was much closer to the complete taking of the property, which would unreasonably interfere with rail transportation and therefore was preempted by the ICCTA. The court reasoned that the possession or conflicting use of railroad property can be burdensome even if the railroad is not currently using the contested property. The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the opinion.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.