Texas court rules bullet train company can use eminent domain to seize land and build railway

The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that state statutes on old electric railcars covers modern bullet trains, meaning the private company trying to connect Dallas and Houston with a high-speed rail line can use imminent domain to buy parcels of land between the cities.

James Miles, a Leon County landowner, sued Texas Central Railroad & Infrastructure and Integrated Texas Logistics after the pair sought permission to survey his 600-acre property in 2015 as it sought a route for its tracks, reported the Texas Tribune in 2020. 

Miles argued that Texas Central did not have the authority to enter his property because it did not have the eminent domain under authority the state’s Transportation Code, which only grants such power to “railway companies” or “interurban electric railway companies” – and argued the Texas Central Entities were neither.

But the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 that although Texas Central did not fit the outdated definition of “interurban electric railway companies” in state law, Miles attempt to argue modern bullet trains were not covered because they were not mentioned by name did not hold up.

“We have long interpreted statutes, including eminent domain statutes, to embrace later-developed technologies when the statutory text allows,” the court said in its ruling, citing how telegraph statutes had been applied to telephone companies even when phones did not exist when the laws were written.

The high court also highlighted that Miles used different “inconsistent interpretive lenses” – he used historical context to argue that high-speed rail were not electric railways mentioned in the Transportation Code but ignored historical context to argue Texas Central was not “operating a railroad” because it has not laid any track.

The court ruled warned that the decision covered the narrow issue of whether Texas Central had been granted the power of eminent domain, nothing more.

The case “does not ask us to opine about whether high-speed rail between Houston and Dallas is a good idea or whether the benefits of the proposed rail service outweighs its detriments,” the decision states in its first paragraph.

The non-profit Texans Against High-Speed Rail blasted the decision, saying on Facebook: “Tax-paying Texans are at risk of having their land condemned by a company that can’t even afford to pay property taxes on the land already under its control.”

Texas Central can now turn to other pressing issues, like the over $600,000 it owes in back taxes and finding a new CEO after theirs resigned via LinkedIn.