Mendocino County judge refuses to set aside ruling against Skunk Train owner in eminent domain case

The owner of Fort Bragg’s popular Skunk Train will appeal an unfavorable ruling in an eminent domain case after a Mendocino County judge refused Friday to reconsider her decision in the high-profile suit.

Mendocino Railway had asked Superior Court Judge Jeanine B. Nadel to set aside her June 1 judgment in favor of landowner John Meyer, in which she determined the railway did not hold the power to condemn his property for its own use.

Nadel allowed limited arguments by Mendocino Railway attorney Glenn Block during a brief hearing Friday but quickly shut down his apparent efforts to school her on the complex area of railroad and public utility law at issue.

The judge had said she was disinclined to reconsider her decision in the case, involving Mendocino Railway’s disputed attempts to force a property owner to sell his land near Willits to the railroad.

And, in the end, she reaffirmed her ruling.

“Let’s not argue the case all over again,” Nadel said. “I’m not going to do that.”

But railway president Robert Pinoli said in an interview after the hearing that “it is very clear” the judge doesn’t grasp rail and public utility law. He said his company would file an appeal.

Pinoli said the railway’s regulation by the California Public Utility Commission should confirm its status as a public utility and common carrier, although the CPUC, in an Aug. 12 letter, stated that the railway was a “regulated railroad but not a public utility.”

CPUCHartLetter.pdf

“All someone needs to do is read, and it’s pretty clear,” Pinoli said.

John Meyer, whose 20-acre parcel off Highway 20 west of Willits was at the center of the dispute, said he fully expected Mendocino Railway to appeal the ruling to a higher court.

But Meyer was gratified to have won the latest few rounds in the case.

“She really hammered them good, didn’t she?” he said of Nadel. “I’m very happy with that part of it.“

Meyer has been fighting for 2 1/2 years to deflect Mendocino Railway’s effort to buy land he doesn’t want to sell, at a price he believes is too low.

The railway claims it has authority as a public utility to acquire the property at a fair price for the greater public good.

But Nadel disputed their claim, saying it is unsupported by the railway’s function as an excursion train. She said a tunnel collapse outside Fort Bragg has precluded it since 2015 even from running the full length of the track between Fort Bragg and Willits, preventing its use for freight hauling, even if there was demand.

There were no indications of passenger travel either, beyond the out-and-back runs from each end of the line popular to tourists, she said.

Nadel also said there were no contracts, papers or other evidence to support Block’s assertion that the Mendocino Railway’s sister company, Northern Sierra Railroad, managed the freight operations sufficient to fulfill the railway’s obligations as a common carrier up until January 2022, when the railway took over.

Nadel also pointed to the railway’s early conception of creating a campground and RV park, along with a train station, at the park. The railway and its president, Robert Pinoli, said only last year the property was needed for maintenance and repair facilities, a rail yard, cargo transfer facilities, and office and train platform, she wrote.

In seeking to reopen arguments in the case, Block had offered as new evidence a May 2 letter from the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board received by Mendocino Railway after Nadel released her initial decision. He said it confirms the railway is an authentic, federally regulated common carrier and contradicts another letter from the same body offered at trial.

But Block finally said Friday, “Nothing I can say will change the court’s mind,” noted his objections were on the record, and the hearing was over.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan (she/her) at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.