Narragansett Pier Railroad Company, Inc. v. Town of Narragansett

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND

)
NARRAGANSETT PIER RAILROAD )
COMPANY, INC., )
)
Plaintiff, )
)

Vv. ) C.A. No. 24-cv-0094-MSM-PAS
)
THE TOWN OF NARRAGANSETT )
and STACEY GORMAN (in her )
capacity as the Narragansett Tax )
Collector), )
)
Defendants. )
)
)

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

Mary S. McElroy, United States District Judge.

Before the Court are Cross-Motions for Summary Judgment filed by the
plaintiff, the Narragansett Pier Railroad Company, Inc. (“NPRR”), and the
defendants, Town of Narragansett and Stacey Gorman in her capacity as the
Narragansett Tax Collector (collectively “Defendants”). For the following reasons,
the Court GRANTS the Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment (ECF No. 23)
and DENIES NPRR’s Motion for Summary Judgment (ECF No. 25).

I. BACKGROUND
This matter arises out of an ownership dispute over some of the land used to

build the Narragansett Pier Railroad—a roughly eight-and-a-half-mile railway that

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ran between West Kingston and the Narragansett Pier.
	See ECF No. 23-1 at 2, 5.
Originally funded and built by the Hazard family, this “short line” railroad formerly
transported 	both 	people 	and 	freight 	throughout 	southern 	Rhode 	Island.
	See
generally James N. J. Henwood,
	A Short Haul to the Bay: A History of the
Narragansett Pier Railroad (1969). 	While this railroad initially experienced a fair
amount of success during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it
underwent a steady period of decline and ultimately ceased its operation in the mid-
to-late twentieth century.
See id. 	Notwithstanding this lengthy period of inactivity,
NPRR brings this action against Defendants and seeks this Court’s ruling that the
land on which the railroad sat ultimately belongs to it. 	ECF No. 13 ¶¶ 8-11.
Specifically, NPRR alleges that, among other things, Defendants violated the Takings
Clause of the Fifth Amendment when they unlawfully took NPRR’s property without
providing just compensation.
Id. ¶ 1.
NPRR’s 	five-count 	Amended 	Complaint 	seeks 	the 	following 	relief: 	(1) 	a
declaration pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2201(a) that Defendants have unlawfully taken
NPRR’s property in violation of the United States and Rhode Island constitutions; (2)
a determination that Defendants have unlawfully taken NPRR’s property in violation
of those same constitutional provisions and that is actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983;
(3) damages under theories of restitution and unjust enrichment under Rhode Island
common law for taxes Defendants collected from third parties on the land at issue;
(4) a determination that Defendants have failed to appraise NPRR’s property and
provide just compensation, as required by the United States and Rhode Island
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Constitutions; and (5) a determination that Defendants’ alleged taking deprived
NPRR 	of 	its 	Due 	Process 	rights 	under 	the 	United 	States 	and 	Rhode 	Island
Constitutions.
Id. ¶¶ 32-58.
The voluminous facts underlying this ownership dispute are incomplete at
best.
See ECF No. 23-1 at 3. (“It has been presumed that the original condemnation
awards and the accompanying deeds were lost in a fire and the corporate records of
NPRR reflecting the same were lost over the years.”) 	Setting aside the deficiencies
present in the record, NPRR contends that it has owned the land at issue since 1953.
ECF No. 26 ¶ 13. Confusingly, NPRR claims that it obtained ownership of the subject
property from a now-defunct entity named the Narragansett Pier Railroad Company.
Id. Notwithstanding NPRR’s purported ownership of this land, it asserts that—over
the past seventy-three years—Defendants have taken the land for their own use
without compensating NPRR. ECF No. 23-1 at 13-14, 20.
In support of this theory, NPRR directs the Court to minutes taken from a July
1953 	Narragansett 	Town 	Council 	meeting 	and 	a 	subsequent 	tax 	assessor
investigation, which determined that NPRR’s abandonment of this land resulted in a
reversion to Defendants. ECF No. 26 at 5-6. Specifically, NPRR claims that the Town
of Narragansett erred in reaching this determination and that the land rightfully
belongs to it. 	ECF No. 23-1 at 1-2. NPRR also directs this Court to a 2005 Rhode
Island Superior Court action supposedly indicating that NPRR lawfully owns the
property. ECF No. 26 at 8-9. Finally, NPRR contends that, almost fifteen years ago,
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Defendants amended their tax assessor maps in a manner that demonstrated their
attempt to unlawfully take NPRR’s property.
Id. at 6-7.
Notwithstanding the decades that have elapsed since NPRR allegedly obtained
ownership of this land, NPRR waited until March 8, 2024, to bring this action.
	See
ECF No. 1. 	Specifically, NPRR claims that it became aware of this issue through
communications that took place with a title insurance attorney in a separate, 2018
lawsuit brought by adjacent landowners seeking to vindicate their ownership rights
over part of the disputed land. ECF No. 13 ¶ 19. 	Following this event, NPRR notified
the 	Narragansett 	town 	solicitor 	that 	“Narragansett 	had 	illegally 	seized 	and
transferred the [land].”
	Id. ¶ 20. 	After nearly three years of correspondence with
Defendants, NPRR filed this action in this Court.
See id. ¶¶ 21-27. The parties now
move for summary judgment.
II. 	SUMMARY JUDGMENT STANDARD
To succeed on a motion for summary judgment, litigants must demonstrate
that a genuine issue of material fact does not exist and that they are entitled to
judgment as a matter of law.
	See Boykin v. Genzyme Therapeutic Prods., LP, 93
F.4th 56, 60 (1st Cir. 2024) (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a)). 	“The summary judgment
ritual is standard fare: once the movant adumbrates an absence of evidence to
support the nonmoving party’s case, the burden shifts to the nonmovant to establish
the genuine issue of material fact.”
Id. (citation modified). Importantly, “to carry this
burden, the nonmovant cannot simply rely on evidence that is conjectural or
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problematic but, rather, must present definite, competent evidence.”
	Id. (citation
modified).
“Where, as here, a defendant moves for summary judgment on the basis of an
affirmative defense—like the statute of limitations—the defendant bears the burden
of proof and cannot attain summary judgment unless the evidence that [s]he provides
on that issue is conclusive.”
	Ouellette v. Beaupre, 977 F.3d 127, 135 (1st Cir. 2020).
“If the defendant produces such conclusive evidence, the burden shifts to the plaintiff
to establish that the statute of limitations does not apply.”
Id. (cleaned up).
III. 	DISCUSSION
The Court’s review of the record and the parties’ arguments reveal that
Defendants have successfully demonstrated NPRR’s failure to file its claims in a
timely manner. Although both parties have raised other arguments to support their
claim of entitlement to summary judgment, the Court determines that its resolution
of this threshold, statute of limitations question resolves NPRR’s claims asserting
violations of the state and federal constitutions. 	As a result, the Court will address
these claims first before turning to NPRR’s additional claim for unjust enrichment
and its request for a declaratory judgment.
A. NPRR’s Constitutional Claims (Counts Two, Four, and Five)
With respect to the statute of limitations in the § 1983 context, federal courts
must conduct the following analysis: (1) determine the state law in which the
plaintiff’s claim arose; (2) apply that state’s limitations period for personal injury
torts; and (3) apply the same state’s “coordinate tolling rules.”
Ouellette, 977 F.3d at
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135. While a plaintiff’s cause of action becomes ripe when all of the acts comprising
an alleged constitutional violation have taken place, courts may sometimes delay the
operative date of a plaintiff’s claim until the plaintiff knows,
or should know, of the
violation.
Id. at 135-36.
Additionally, in
United States v. Kubrick, the Supreme Court explained that a
plaintiff may not plead ignorance of the law to buy themselves more time to sue. 444
U.S. 111, 123-24 (1979). Similarly—and critical to this case— to determine whether
a plaintiff has knowledge of the facts underlying their putative claims, courts impose
knowledge on plaintiffs in the following areas: (1) generally available information
about the facts underlying their claim; and (2) the results of
any further inquiry that
a reasonable individual possessing these facts would undertake.
Donahue v. United
States, 634 F.3d 615, 624 (1st Cir. 2011).
Here, Defendants have shown that NPRR’s § 1983 claims are barred by the
applicable statute of limitations. 	Neither party disputes that Rhode Island law
applies to this dispute—nor can they, this railroad and the property it sat on are in
Rhode Island. 	As a result, Rhode Island’s three-year statute of limitations governs
NPRR’s § 1983 claims along with NPRR’s other state and federal constitutional
claims.1	
See Riggs v. Curran, 863 F.3d 6, 10 (1st Cir. 2017);
Marrapese v. Rhode
1 With respect to NPRR’s other constitutional claims: First, litigants generally lack
the ability to bring freestanding claims alleging violations of their constitutional
rights.
See Devillier v. Texas, 601 U.S. 285, 291 (2024) (“Constitutional rights do not
typically come with a built-in cause of action to allow for private enforcement in
courts. Instead, constitutional rights are generally invoked defensively in cases
arising under other sources of law, or asserted offensively pursuant to an independent
cause of action designated for that purpose, see,
e.g., 42 U.S.C. § 1983.”) As a result,
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Island, 749 F.2d 934, 936 (1st Cir. 1984) (applying R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-1-14). Applying
Rhode Island’s three-year statute of limitations, the undisputed facts here indicate
that NPRR failed to file this action within the requisite timeframe.
At a minimum, the record reveals that NPRR should have sued Defendants
disputing the ownership status of this land fifteen years ago—when Defendants
amended their tax assessor maps in 2011. 	Moreover, the 2005 Superior Court
proceedings concerning some of this property that NPRR cites in support of this
purported taking also should have served as the catalyst for NPRR to realize that the
status of this property was at issue. While NPRR claims that it found out about the
facts giving rise to its claims in 2021, the record here indicates that an abundance of
generally available information existed for decades prior to 2021 that should have
reasonably prompted NPRR to either: (1) reach out to Defendants sooner regarding
the disputed status of the property; or (2) file an action in state or federal court
seeking to quiet title to the land.
See Ouellette, 977 F.3d at 136-37. Based on NPRR’s
failure to file these claims in a timely manner, the Court determines that Rhode
the Court analyzes counts two, four, and five as if NPRR has brought them all as §
1983 claims.
See e.g.,
Hickey v. Tompkins, CA No. 19-11349-LTS, 2021 WL 858439,
at, * 3 n.3 (D. Mass. Mar. 8, 2021) (“For the sake of simplicity, the Court shall analyze
[plaintiff’s] freestanding constitutional claims as though they were brought pursuant
to Section 1983.”).
Second, plaintiffs cannot bring claims that a defendant violated a
	state
constitution under § 1983.
	See Am. Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40,49-
50 (1999) (“To state a claim for relief in an action brought under § 1983, [plaintiffs]
must establish that they were deprived of a right secured by the Constitution or the
laws
of the United States.”) (cleaned up) (emphasis added). As a result, NPRR’s state
constitutional law claims cannot survive summary judgment.
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Island’s applicable statute of limitations bars it from bringing counts two, four, and
five of their Amended Complaint.
B. NPRR’s Claim for Unjust Enrichment (Count 3)
With respect to NPRR’s claim for unjust enrichment, the Court concludes that
NPRR lacks standing to recover tax revenue that Defendants have collected from
third-party property owners. 	When determining whether a litigant may recover for
unjust enrichment in Rhode Island, courts must evaluate whether a plaintiff can
meet the three following elements:
“First, a benefit must be conferred upon the defendant
by
the plaintiff. Second, there must be an appreciation by the
defendant 	of 	such 	benefit. 	Finally, 	there 	must 	be
acceptance of such benefit under such circumstances that
it would be inequitable for [her] to retain the benefit
without paying the value thereof.”
R&B Elec. Co., Inc. v. Amco Const.. Co., Inc., 471 A.2d 1351, 1356 (R.I. 1984)
(emphasis added).
Here, NPRR cannot demonstrate that it has satisfied the first element of its
unjust enrichment claim. 	NPRR itself did not confer the benefit at issue—tax
revenue paid to the town of Narragansett—to Defendants themselves. Instead, these
tax payments came from third parties that neither seek to recover this tax revenue
nor have they participated in NPRR’s action against Defendants. While NPRR makes
a generalized argument that “harm” occurred based on Defendants’ receipt of tax
revenue from third parties, NPRR nevertheless fails to direct the Court to any valid
authority that would allow it to redirect these ostensibly unlawfully collected tax
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proceeds to
NPRR—as opposed to the third-party taxpayers themselves.
	See ECF
No. 27-1 at 18-20. As a result, the Court also grants Defendants’ Motion for Summary
Judgment on NPRR’s unjust enrichment claim.
C. NPRR’s Request for a Declaratory Judgment (Count 1)
Finally, the Court’s grant of Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment on
the prior causes of action mandates the dismissal of NPRR’s remaining request for a
declaratory judgment under 28 U.S.C. § 2201(a). The Declaratory Judgment Act does
not provide litigants with substantive rights or a freestanding cause of action.
	See
Skelly Oil Co. v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 339 U.S. 667, 671-72 (1950);
Tyler v.
Michaels Stores, Inc., 840 F. Supp. 2d 438, 452 (D. Mass. 2012). 	As a result of the
Court’s dismissal of NPRR’s prior claims, leaving NPRR with no substantive claim
upon which it can seek a declaration, the Defendants are entitled to summary
judgment on Count 1.
See id.
IV. 	CONCLUSION
For these reasons, the Court GRANTS Defendants’ Motion for Summary
Judgment, ECF No. 23, and DENIES NPRR’s Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF
No. 25.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
_________________________________
Mary S. McElroy
United States District Judge
October 14, 2026
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