SUPREME COURT NOTEBOOK

Episcopal Church dispute declined WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court has declined to wade into a dispute between the Episcopal Church and a conservative congregation that left the denomination in a rift over homosexuality and other issues. The justices on Monday rejected an appeal from The Falls Church, one of seven Virginia congregations that broke away from the Episcopal Church in 2006 and aligned itself with the more conservative Anglican Church of North America. The breakaway congregation in suburban Washington, D.C., claimed a right to keep the church building and surrounding property. But the Virginia Supreme Court ruled the Episcopal Church retained ownership of the historic church. The Falls Church was one of seven Virginia congregations that left the Episcopal Church because of theological differences, including the 2003 consecration of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire. Court rules for landowner in bike trail case By Mark Sherman Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Monday sided with a Wyoming property owner in a dispute over a bicycle trail that follows the route of an abandoned railroad, a decision that could force the government to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to compensate landowners. The justices ruled 8-1 that property owner Marvin Brandt remains the owner of a 200-foot-wide trail that crosses his 83-acre parcel in southern Wyoming's Medicine Bow National Forest. The trail once was the path of a railroad and is among thousands of miles of abandoned railroads that have been converted to recreational trails. Chief Justice John Roberts said the government was wrong to assert that it owns the trail. The government says it faces compensation claims involving 10,000 properties in 30 states, possibly topping $100 million. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in dissent the court's decision "undermines the legality of thousands of miles of former rights of way that the public now enjoys as means of transportation and recreation." The dispute has its roots in the settlement and development of the western United States in the 1800s. The government gave railroads the right to lay track on public lands to make it easier for people to get to and live in the West. Later, the government gave away millions of acres of public land to settlers and homesteaders, but preserved the railroads' path through these once-public lands. As Roberts noted Monday, "The settlers and their successors remained, but many of the railroads did not." Brandt's case involved what happens to the railroad's path, known as a right of way, when the railroad abandons it, under a law dating from 1875. Roberts, writing for the court, said that the owners of the Laramie, Hahn's Peak and Pacific Railroad -- the LHP&P -- had "rosy expectations" when they completed a 66-mile run from Laramie, Wyo., to Coalmont, Colo., in 1911. The owners said it would become "one of the most important railroad systems in this country," Roberts said. He also noted that locals at the time said that the acronym LHP&P stood for "Lord Help Push and Pull" or "Late, Hard Pressed and Panicky." In any event, the railroad didn't make any money. The line changed hands a couple of times before its last owners tore up the tracks and abandoned it in 2004. The government claimed it two years later and all but one of 31 land owners along the route gave up any claims. Brandt was the lone holdout and he won his lawsuit Monday. The case is Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. U.S., 12-1173. Justices won't hear appeal over bracelets WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from a school that tried to ban students from wearing "I (heart) Boobies!" bracelets to promote breast cancer awareness, ending a case that began more than three years ago with the suspension of two middle-school girls who refused a principal's order to take them off. The case started in 2010 when two girls, then ages 12 and 13, challenged the ban. Kayla Martinez and Brianna Hawk said they were trying to promote awareness of the disease at their middle school. They wore the bracelets on their school's Breast Cancer Awareness Day -- in defiance of a ban that had been announced a day earlier -- and refused to take them off. The girls filed suit after being suspended from class. The justices left in place a U.S. appeals court ruling that found the bracelets were not "plainly lewd," nor had they caused a disruption. "The principle here is that even kids talk about important things, and when they talk about important things, that's what we should be encouraging," Mary Catherine Roper, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said Monday. "Kids should be able to talk about things that matter to them in language that is both respectful and familiar to them." The school district's lawyer, John Freund, said the ruling "robs educators and school boards of the ability to strike a reasonable balance between a student's right to creative expression" and districts' responsibility to make sure schools are "free from sexual entendre and vulgarity." Easton is one of several school districts around America to ban the bracelets, which are distributed by the nonprofit Keep A Breast Foundation of California. Published: Wed, Mar 12, 2014