Lewis Rice Secures $241,065 for Two Landowners Along Former Union Pacific Rail Line in Weber and Davis Counties, Utah

The law firm of Lewis Rice LLC has secured $241,065 in just compensation for two landowners in Weber County, Utah, as a result of the federal railbanking of a six-mile stretch of former Union Pacific Railroad property.

The corridor, known as the Hill Field Industrial Lead, runs through parts of Weber and Davis Counties near the Ogden-Hinckley Airport and is being converted into a recreational trail under the federal National Trails System Act. As part of this federal railbanking process, the property was formally conveyed to the Utah Department of Transportation for trail development.

The federal government settled the claims of these two landowners for its taking of their private property for a public trail. This reaffirms that landowners affected by this type of rail-to-trail conversion are constitutionally entitled to fair compensation for property interests impacted by the federal easement.

Lindsay Brinton and Meghan Largent lead Lewis Rice’s Federal Takings & Rails to Trails Practice Group, which has represented over a thousand landowners nationwide in similar cases. The team has secured significant compensation in Trails Act litigation across the country, including recent multimillion-dollar rulings in North Carolina and Missouri.

Lewis Rice believes that approximately a dozen additional landowners in Weber and Davis Counties are still eligible for compensation in connection with the Hill Field Industrial Lead corridor.

“These landowners in Weber and Davis Counties still have the right to file a claim for the just compensation the federal government owes them,” Brinton said. “We’d be proud to ensure their constitutional rights are protected.”