We were all set to offer our deep thoughts about the recently-published opinion of the California Court of Appeal in Mendocino Railway v. Meyer, No. A168497 (Jam. 7, 2026), which held that the Skunk Train (a “train to nowhere” that carries tourists up in California’s redwood country) is a “common carrier” with the power of eminent domain when Professor Shaun Martin’s California Appellate Report beat us to the punch.
In this post, Professor Martin writes:
Here’s the lingo that my teenage children would likely employ after reading this opinion:
Sus.
It’s not that the Mendocino Railway isn’t an actual railway. It is. It’s got train tracks and a locomotive, after all.
But it want to seize some private property via eminent domain. Property belonging to someone else.
Now, apparently, you can do that if you’re a common carrier. That itself seems super dubious to me, honestly. I would have thought that you’d have to get permission of the relevant governmental body first. But here in California, at least, if you’re a legitimate railroad that carries people and freight or stuff, you can just grab anyone else’s property if you want, as long as it’s part of your legitimate business.
Okay. I’m not really down for that, if truth be told. But apparently that’s the rule.
So the Mendocino Railway has to prove that it’s a common carrier. Which, as a purely legal matter, it’s totally not — and the trial court so held — since it doesn’t even own the railway, which actually belongs to some subsidiaries or affiliate companies.
No matter, says the Court of Appeal. That’s good enough.
Check his entire post out here. Well worth reading.
Mendocino Railway v. Meyer, No. A168497 (Cal. Ct. App. Jan. 7, 2026)