(The following article by James Quirk Jr. was posted on the Hawkeye website on December 16.)
BURLINGTON, Iowa — A trial date for the city of Burlington’s lawsuit against the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway has been set.
City Attorney Scott Power reported Wednesday the city and BNSF will lock horns before federal Judge Charles R. Wolle in the U.S. District Court in Davenport on Nov. 14, 2005.
There’s a possibility the trial will take place in a federal court in Rock Island, Ill., should a project to renovate the Davenport courthouse not be completed, he said.
“But … I think they’ll be done by then,” Power said.
The city filed a lawsuit against BNSF in March contending the railroad breached a 146–year–old contract that stipulates the railroad could use riverfront property for its switching and maintenance operations as long as it maintained its principal shops in the city.
BNSF eliminated 258 local positions in January 2003 and transferred about 130 positions to Galesburg, Ill., and Topeka, Kan., this year.
Power said he and Bob Engberg, president of the Iowa Defense Council, will represent the city when the trial starts in November.
Power assured that, although much time will have passed from when the suit was filed to when the trial starts, the ongoing legal process has not been stagnating.
“Legal cases don’t stagnate,” he said. “They may drag, but they don’t stagnate … We’re under a series of deadlines to get certain things done by certain times …
“We have to amend our pleadings by a date early in January. I mean, there are things that go on beneath the surface. We have to have discovery conducted and completed by a certain date next year … The process grinds on, it just isn’t out in the public very much.”
Although he said he can’t predict how the trial will turn out, Power believes it will be favorable to the city.
“If we didn’t (feel like we had a good case), we wouldn’t have filed in the first place,” he said.
City officials are hoping the judge rules BNSF is in the wrong and allows the city to start charging the railroad to continue using the riverfront property for its operations.
The city hopes the amount BNSF has to pay is so high that the railroad would save money by restoring the principal shops status to Burlington, thus bringing back the lost jobs.
The riverfront property was deeded to the city as public land in perpetuity by an act of Congress in 1836, but the railroad has collected rent from several businesses along the riverfront, including ADM/Growmark, for many years.