MIAMI — Florida East Coast Railway’s lawsuit against Brightline — over Brightline’s efforts to develop commuter rail service in South Florida — has been stayed until the two parties can meet to discuss arbitration.
Public broadcaster WLRN reports Miami-Dade County Circuit Court Judge Robert Watson granted the stay on Thursday, Nov. 13. Brightline is seeking a more permanent stay while it and FEC work out an agreement, while FEC wants the suit to move forward.
Florida East Coast filed the suit in July, saying Brightline does not have the authority to negotiate additional use of its tracks, over which Brightline operates most of its Miami-Orlando passenger operation. Brightline says its contract with FEC gives Brightline the right to operate passenger service on its route, either directly or through “designees,” and that the proposed Miami-Aventura commuter service, as well as another between Aventura and Fort Lauderdale, would qualify as designees. [See “Florida East Coast sues Brightline …,” Trains.com, Aug. 1, 2025].
FEC filed an amended version of its original complaint in September, adding additional defendants including Brightline parent Fortress Investment Group. The updated complaint claims Brightline “was a failure almost from the outset” and “sits on the brink of bankruptcy,” owes almost $5.5 billion to bondholders, and has failed to pay its share of maintenance on the FEC route. The revised complaint incorporates information from an ongoing Miami Herald/WLRN investigation into deaths and injuries along Brightline’s route [see “Media report says Brightline death toll is higher …,” Trains.com, July 16, 2025]; FEC claims the safety issues are “perhaps unsurprising given that a safe operation necessitates proper funding.”
Brightline has requested the matter be settled by arbitration, citing language in the FEC-Brightline contract that calls for arbitration to settle disputes, and says the FEC suit was intended to “thwart” a Brightline bond offering “by asserting frivolous claims in a public form.” FEC said in response that it “does not agree that the parties’ dispute is subject to arbitration.” Brightline’s most recent filing asked for some documents to be sealed because they contain “confidential and proprietary business information.”
Meanwhile, government officials continue to work to advance the commuter rail projects, which have already received some federal and state funding. Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told WLRN, “… we’re very hopeful that they can resolve the issues so that we can have the access that we’ve planned for. We’re of course an interested party and we are contributing what we can to allow them to settle it in a way that will benefit the residents of Miami-Dade County.”
The dispute reflects, in part, the fact FEC and Brightline are no longer both owned by Fortress, as they were when the passenger operation was devised. FEC was purchased in 2017 by the transportation division of conglomerate Grupo Mexico, which also owns two of Mexico’s three largest freight rail operations [see “Grupo Mexico to acquire FEC,” Trains.com, March 28, 2017].
