United States v. Williams

• Decision Date: 13 May 1971
• Docket Number: No. 29674.,29674.
• Citation: 441 F.2d 637
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Roy W. WILLIAMS and Carl V. Ivey, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

441 F.2d 637 (1971)

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Roy W. WILLIAMS and Carl V. Ivey, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 29674.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

April 5, 1971.

Rehearing Denied May 13, 1971.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Kenneth E. Goolsby, Albert H. Dallas, Thomson, Ga., Ben B. Ross, Lincolnton, Ga., William C. Calhoun, Calhoun & Kernaghan, Augusta, Ga., for defendants-appellants.

R. Jackson B. Smith, Jr., U. S. Atty., Augusta, Ga., Shiro Kashiwa, Asst. Atty. Gen., Raymond N. Zagone, Dennis M. O'Connell, Attys., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., William T. Morton, Asst. U. S. Atty., Augusta, Ga., for plaintiff-appellee.

Before BELL, DYER and RONEY, Circuit Judges.

DYER, Circuit Judge:

In this boundary dispute, Williams and Ivey appeal from the District Court's judgment enjoining them from future trespass on lands owned by the United States and ordering them to remove all obstructions from the Government's property. Williams and Ivey argue that the District Court erred both in denying them a jury trial and in publishing clearly erroneous findings of fact and incorrect conclusions of law, upon which its judgment was based. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand.

This controversy has been a half century in the making. Originally the land in dispute was part of a tract consisting of approximately 350 acres located in Lincoln County, Georgia. Known as the "Weathers Place," the tract was owned by Mrs. M. J. Groves at the time of her death in 1918. Mrs. Groves devised the tract to her three children, Meynard Groves, Mabel May, and Lena May. She gave testamentary directions that the property be divided among them as equally as possible. Pursuant to her wishes, O. S. Barnett surveyed the property and drew two plats, each of which depicted part of the tract. Based on these plats, Mrs. Groves' two daughters received undivided one-half interests in a 235½ acre parcel; Meynard Groves was deeded the remaining 117½ acre parcel. Each of these transactions referred to one or the other of Barnett's survey plats. Later that year, the sisters voluntarily partitioned their parcel, Lena receiving the southern half.

In October 1949 Roy Williams, a successor in title to Meynard Groves, agreed to sell 30 acres of the Groves parcel to the United States for use in connection with the Clark's Hill Dam and Reservoir Project. This property was directly west of and adjacent to land owned by Lena May. Utilizing Barnett's plats, the Corps of Engineers surveyed the property to be purchased by the United States. According to government witness, concrete monuments were then placed at the corners of the property. Subsequently, on November 14, 1949, Williams requested an individual map of the land he was selling. In response to his letter, the Corps of Engineers stated that it did not furnish individual tract maps but sent him a tracing, taken from its grid map, of the property in question.

On December 15, 1949, Williams deeded 30 acres, "more or less," to the United States; the signed sales agreement included a detailed legal description of the property.¹ At the same time, Williams executed a "Declaration of Ownership" in which he stated that he owned the property in question and had been in exclusive possession for four years. Furthermore, in the deed he promised to "warrant and defend the title to the said property unto the United States and its assigns against the lawful claims of all persons whomsoever * * *."

On September 22, 1953, Williams and Carl Ivey purchased land east of and adjacent to the Government's property from Lena May. The sales agreement described the property only as bounded by the lands of adjoining landowners, including the United States.² However, the agreement referred to a plat by M. B. Cooper setting the western boundary of Mrs. May's property — the line of demarcation between her property and that of the United States — at Cliat Creek. Ostensibly based on reputation in the community as to boundaries, the Cooper plat was prepared in 1953. However, it was not recorded until 1969, after the action sub judice had been filed. Instead, the parties inadvertently attached one of Barnett's 1918 plats in 1964, when they recorded their deed from Lena May.

Practically speaking, the Williams-Ivey purchase solidified the issues raised in this lawsuit, for there is an irreconcilable deviation between the mutual boundary set by the United States and that claimed by Williams and Ivey. On the one hand, the Government's survey, following Barnett's plats, located the southernmost point of this boundary at a no-longer-existing pine sprout; this is also the southeast corner of the Government's property. The locus of this sprout was fixed by following the bearings shown on the Barnett plat from the southwestern corner of the property (an existing spring) and running to a point 15.30 chains S.58 E. (mistakenly described by the District Court as N.58 W.). From the pine sprout, the Government's line runs north. Generally this boundary line follows the bed of Cliat Creek, which runs north-south. However, on Barnett's plats and the Government's survey, the line is delineated as independent from the meandering of the branch. Neither Barnett nor the Government surveyed the creek. Indeed, as to the mutual boundary, Barnett noted on his plats: "This line was estimated." Moreover, Barnett did not bother to draw the creek accurately: when his two plats are juxtaposed, the creek does not occupy the same position in relation to the mutual north-south boundary.³ Apparently Barnett supposed that the creek follows a reasonably straight north-south course. Actually it does not: when the creek reaches the southern part of the Groves parcel, it meanders westerly. The consequence of this veering is that the Government's measured southeast corner is several hundred feet east of the creekbed at that point. In none of the six deeds in the chain of title to the Groves parcel was the creek mentioned as a boundary. Each deed described the property as bounded on the east by lands of various adjoining owners. All the instruments referred to the Barnett plat pertaining to the Groves parcel.

On the other hand, Williams and Ivey employed Cooper to survey the property which they intended to purchase from Lena May in 1953. Allegedly Cooper could not find the Barnett plat of this property. Thus, in preparing his survey, he relied on reputation in the community — particularly the testimony of Mrs. May — as to the western boundary of her property. Indeed, during a pretrial deposition, Mrs. May acknowledged her familiarity with the property and said that "I've always heard them immediate family members say that the creek was the line." Corroborating her statements was evidence of wire embedded deep in several old trees along the creek; at one time this wire constituted part of a fence. Also, Williams testified that during the fifty years he had known the property, the branch had always been considered the boundary. He commented further that a man named Hogan had once farmed the area east of the creek and a man named Jacobs had farmed the area west of the branch. Cooper's 1953 plat, showing the creek as the boundary, lends credence to Mrs. May's and Williams' assertions.

Thus it becomes apparent that the crux of this controversy is whether a natural boundary (Cliat Creek) or either of the surveyed lines now separates the property owned by the United States from that held by Williams and Ivey. After the Williams-Ivey purchase, all that remained was for one landowner to encroach on the disputed area, and for the other to discover his presence.

Soon after they acquired Lena May's property, Williams and Ivey built a fence along Cliat Creek, cleared the area, cut timber, and began farming. A government forest ranger discovered these activities in 1964. After repeated attempts to dissuade Williams and Ivey from continuing their operations had failed, the United States filed a complaint characterizing these intrusions as continuing trespasses and praying for a permanent injunction, as well as damages for timber cut and removed from the premises. In their answer Williams and Ivey sought reformation of the deed from Williams to the Government to exclude the disputed land from the legal description; they demanded a jury trial as to "each and every issue of fact." The District Court refused both requests.

After a non-jury trial, the District Judge determined that the Government's contentions regarding the location of the boundary between its property and the Williams-Ivey holdings were correct. The judge based his conclusions upon consideration of the Barnett plats, the intention of Mrs. M. J. Groves and of her heirs in division of the original tract, and the chain of title culminating in Williams' deed to the United States. The District Court entered judgment enjoining Williams and Ivey from trespassing on property described in the deed to the United States. It reserved the issue of damages for future determination.

Williams and Ivey here argue that the District Court erred in denying them the right to trial by jury. Since the Government injected the legal issue of damages into its complaint, they contend that a jury determination of all issues was mandatory. Furthermore, they assert that the court omitted consideration of important, relevant evidence and testimony in reaching its conclusion. Specifically they urge that the mutual boundary between the lands now owned by the United States and those held by Williams and Ivey was unascertainable because of ambiguities in the Barnett plats, and that the original devisees of these parcels agreed to establish Cliat Creek as the common boundary. Pointing out that the remnants of an ancient fence along the creek still exist, Williams and Ivey allege that they have merely renovated the proper boundary. Thus they ask that the District Court's judgment...