City Wins Fight in U.S. Supreme Court Over Railway Land

A decade-long battle over the ownership of former Santa Fe Railway property in Manhattan Beach came to an end Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a state Supreme Court ruling that the strip of open space belongs to the city.

The city had purchased the 21-acre property from the railroad in 1985 for $5 million and put in a jogging trail. Two years later, nearly 70 heirs of the Redondo Land Co., a development firm that granted an easement to the railway company, filed a lawsuit claiming that the property should have reverted to the land company, not to Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe when railroad operations ceased in 1982.

In June, the state Supreme Court found that the property belonged to the railroad outright at the time it was sold to the city and the heirs have no ownership interests. The court found that in deeding the property, the Redondo Land Co. meant to dispose of any interest in the land.

“The city is delighted by the verdict,” said City Atty. Robert Wadden Jr.

Joe Dzida, an attorney for the heirs, said the plaintiffs still believe they are entitled to the land. Torrance Superior Court Judge William C. Beverly Jr. ruled in their favor in 1992.