Jan. 2026 Magazine - Flipbook - Page 10
ATTORNEY’S ANGLE
TEXAS REAL ESTATE
LAW RECENT CASES
The following is a summary of recent Texas real estate law
cases as prepared by the Dallas Bar Association.
Easements
Albert v. Fort Worth & Western Railroad Company, 690 S.W.3d 92
(Tex. 2024).
Albert purchased a ten-acre tract of land in Johnson County
(the Property) to build a cement mixing plant. Albert and two
business partners formed Chisholm Trail Redi-Mix, LLC to
operate the planned plant.
Logan Spence
Practices law with the law
firm of Hance
Scarborough, LLP and
serves as TSPS Legal and
Legislative Counsel
Western owns the tract of land that separates Albert’s property
and the highway. Both properties were originally part of the same
702-acre tract. That tract was severed in 1887 when a 12.7-acre strip
was conveyed in fee simple to Western’s predecessor-in-interest, to
build railroad tracks. This severance divided the 702-acre tract into a
larger Southwestern Tract, a smaller Northeastern Tract, and the narrow
tract for the railroad. Albert’s Property is the smaller Northeastern Tract,
which is separated from the highway by the railroad tract.
A single-lane gravel road crossing the railroad tract connects Albert’s Property to the highway over
the railroad tracks. A prior owner of Albert’s tract, Meek, obtained a license from Western’s
predecessor to build a gravel crossing from the property to the highway across the railroad tract. The
license restricted the use to personal and agricultural purposes and was not assignable without
consent.
The Property was sold a number of times until Albert eventually bought it. Meek did not attempt to
assign his license when he sold the Property, nor did any of his successors. Nevertheless, all of the
subsequent purchasers from Meek continued to use the crossing for various purposes, including
commercial uses, despite not having a license to do so. Over those decades, none of the railroad tract
owners objected to the use or attempted to block the path over the railroad tracks.
When Western acquired the railroad tract in 2005, it began sending notices to the Property’s owners
informing them that they were trespassing on Western’s right-of-way by using the gravel crossing.
But like its predecessors, Western never attempted to physically interrupt the gravel crossing’s path
over the railroad tracks. So, by all appearances, the gravel crossing has remained an unblocked route
connecting the Property and the highway since the crossing was first built sometime before 1941.
Over Western’s objections, Albert bought the Property and Chisholm Trail, his company, built and
operated the concrete plant. Because the gravel crossing is the sole point of ingress and egress to the
concrete plant from the highway, Chisholm Trail’s trucks used the crossing to reach the highway.
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January 2026 | THE TEXAS SURVEYOR
