Pumpkinvine Home > In the News > Court Ruling
Court upholds Friends ’ ownership of Pumpkinvine
corridor
The Friends of the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail, Inc.now has a court ruling to back up its ownership claims on disputed portions of the Pumpkinvine corridor between Goshen and Middlebury. The ruling came in the form of a settlement agreement in the class-action lawsuit involving all abandoned Penn Central corridors in Indiana.
Landowners adjacent to those corridors had filed the suit against Penn Central Corporation (later American Premier Underwriters,Inc.)and U.S.Railroad Vest Corp.in October 1992,claiming that they had tried to sell land they didn’t own.
The court ruling and examination of the original deeds indicate that the Friends are owners of all disputed parcels between CR 28 and U.S.20. “This ruling is wonderful news,” said John Yoder,,Friends president. “We ’ve been in legal limbo on the Goshen-Middlebury section of the trail. Even though we believed the original deeds gave us ownership,we didn ’t have a court ruling to support our claims. We can now assert our ownership like any other property owner.”
This complicated class-action law suit was filed in October 1992, on behalf of owners of 7,994 class members adjacent to 733 miles of abandoned former Penn Central railroad corridors in Indiana, including the Pumpkinvine. All owners of land adjacent to the former Penn Central railroad corridors were members of the Firestone class unless they chose to opt-out by November 16,1998.
While the class-action lawsuit was stalled in procedural maneuvers, the Friends filed and won two separate quiet-title law suits in 1994 and 2000 on the Pumpkinvine corridor. The settlement agreement in the class-action case did not change any ownership of Pumpkinvine parcels decided in those cases. It did,however,clarify the status of ownership of the Pumpkinvine between CR 28 and U.S. 20 —the section of the Pumpkinvine not part of the earlier Friends quiet-title actions.
Although Judge Steven David issued his ruling on how the original deeds should be interpreted in 2001, the thousands of deeds involved delayed publication of the results until October 2004. Landowners adjacent to Penn Central corridors received notice of how their property was impacted in January 2005.
“The Friends came out very well from the Firestone settlement,” said Yoder. “We don ’t own everything between CR 28 and U.S. 20, but the trail can go around those sections for the time being.”
Copies of the settlement agreement can be downloaded from www.right-of-way-law.com
