High-Speed Rail Gets SCOTX Approval in Eminent-Domain Challenge

In a 5-3 decision the Texas Supreme Court held Friday that entities seeking to build a Dallas-to-Houston high-speed railway have statutory eminent-domain authority to take land to build it.In Miles v. Texas Central Railroad & Infrastructure Inc. and Integrated Texas Logistics Inc. the court concluded in a majority opinion by Justice Debra Lehrmann that Texas Central Railroad and Integrated Texas Logistics qualify as an interurban electric-railway company possessing eminent-domain power the Legislature granted more than 100 years ago to further such developments.“The narrow issue presented is whether the two private entities behind the project have been statutorily granted the power of eminent domain,” according to the majority. Justice Jane Bland did not participate.The case dates to November 2015 when James Fredrick Miles, a former Leon County commissioner who owns 600 acres that the high-speed rail would bisect, refused to let surveyors enter his property to plot the rail line’s route. Miles claimed eminent-domain power did not exist because the prospect that the railway would be completed was not reasonable. He sued both Texas Central and Integrated Texas Logistics to declare that the companies have no statutory authority to take his land for the project.To that, the two high-speed rail entities…