Anderson & Middleton Lumber Co. v. Quinault Indian Nation
| Decision Date | 26 December 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. 63491-2,63491-2 |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
| Parties | ANDERSON & MIDDLETON LUMBER COMPANY, Respondent, v. QUINAULT INDIAN NATION, Petitioner. |
Smith & Leary, John J. Leary, Jr., James R. Hennessey, Connie K. Haslam, Seattle, for respondent.
The Quinault Indian Nation appeals a decision by the Court of Appeals, Division Two, which affirmed summary judgment by the Grays Harbor County Superior Court in favor of Anderson and Middleton Lumber Company in a partition and quiet title action involving eighty acres of property located within the borders of the Quinault Indian Reservation. We affirm.
The sole question presented in this case is whether the Grays Harbor County Superior Court retained jurisdiction over an action to partition and quiet title to fee-patented lands located within the Quinault Indian Reservation filed by Anderson and Middleton Lumber Company against ten individual owners after the Quinault Indian Nation acquired the interests of the individual owners and was substituted as defendant.
Respondent Anderson and Middleton Lumber Company (A & M) filed suit on January 15, 1992 in Grays Harbor County Superior Court to partition and quiet title to an 80-acre parcel of property located within the borders of the Quinault Indian Reservation. On the same day it filed and recorded a lis pendens to provide record notice of the action. A & M owns, in fee simple, an undivided five-sixths The property in question was formerly tribal land held in trust by the United States with federal restrictions on alienation. It acquired its fee simple status in 1958 when the United States issued a "fee patent" conveying ownership to the heirs of one Elliot Peterson. The "fee patent" was issued under the Indian General Allotment Act of 1887 (GAA) and removed all restrictions on conveyance or encumbrance of the property. A & M began purchasing interests in the property in 1965 and by 1988 had acquired its present ownership share. That ownership share, along with the fractional interest owned by the ten individuals at the time of A & M's partition action, are not in dispute in this appeal.
interest in the surface estate and an undivided one-half interest in the mineral estate of the property. At the time suit was filed, the remaining one-sixth interest in the surface estate and one-half interest in the mineral estate were owned by ten individuals as tenants-in-common with A & M. The United States holds in trust for two of the ten individuals two separate one-ninth interests in the mineral estate. The complaint filed by A & M named the ten individuals as defendants, but did not name the United States as a party. All named defendants were properly served.
On or about February 24, 1992, more than one month after the lawsuit was filed, the Quinault Indian Nation (Nation) acquired by statutory warranty deeds from the ten individuals their undivided one-sixth fee interest in the surface estate of the property. The statutory warranty deeds transferring title of the surface estate to the Nation stated specifically that the transfer to the Nation was subject to the pending suit filed by A & M and the lis pendens. The Nation concedes it had actual notice of the lawsuit when it purchased its interest in the surface estate of the property.
After transferring their interest to the Nation, the ten former owners moved for their dismissal as defendants and substitution of the Quinault Nation as defendant in A & M then filed a motion for summary judgment. The Nation filed a motion to dismiss and a response to the motion for summary judgment, arguing that the court did not have personal or subject matter jurisdiction and that A & M had not joined the United States as an indispensable party. The trial court then granted the Nation's motion, concluding that the Nation enjoyed protection from suit under the doctrine of sovereign immunity. It issued an order dismissing the Nation as defendant and reinstating the original defendants under CR 60(b).
the lawsuit. The trial court, the Honorable Gordon Godfrey, granted the motion. It also ordered A & M to serve a copy of the order on the Nation. The Nation then filed a notice of special appearance to contest, among other things, the court's assumption of jurisdiction.
But on a motion for reconsideration, the trial court reversed itself and granted A & M's motion for summary judgment and ordered the surface estate of the property partitioned under RCW 7.52 et seq. The court ruled it had in rem jurisdiction over the property and personal jurisdiction over the Nation because the Nation had waived its immunity "[b]y implication and action." It also ruled the United States was not an indispensable party to the action because the suit was to partition and quiet title to only the surface estate and not to the mineral estate.
The Nation appealed the ruling of the Superior Court. The Court of Appeals, Division Two, affirmed, holding that the trial court did have proper jurisdiction to decide the case. 1 Without addressing the issue of waiver, the court concluded the trial court had personal jurisdiction over the Nation, reasoning that once jurisdiction properly attached, it continued after substitution of parties. The court also agreed with the trial court that because A & M's suit was to partition and quiet title to the surface estate of the property, and not to the mineral estate, the United States The Nation now appeals the decision by the Court of Appeals. It argues that the trial court erred in entering summary judgment in A & M's favor because the court did not have personal or subject matter jurisdiction over the law suit. It also argues the court did not have jurisdiction because the United States was not joined as an indispensable party. 2
was not an indispensable party to the suit. However, the court did not rule on the issue of in rem jurisdiction.
Through a succession of congressional land enactments passed during the latter part of the nineteenth century, this nation's policy of sequestering land for the exclusive use and control of Indian Tribes was replaced by a policy of allotting those lands to individual tribal members. 3 The general purpose behind the allotment policy was to abolish tribal sovereignty and the communal reservation system and thus force Indian assimilation into general society by breaking up tribal relations. 4
The Indian General Allotment Act of 1887, as amended and codified in 25 U.S.C. §§ 331 et seq., was one of the land acts furthering Congress' allotment policy. The GAA empowered the President of the United States to allot tribal lands nationwide to individual Indian allottees without consent of the affected Indian Nations. Upon approval of an allotment under the Act, a trust patent would issue to an Indian allottee, declaring that the allotted The policy of allotting tribal lands proved to be "disastrous for the Indians," as well as "administratively unworkable and economically wasteful." 10 In response to this failed policy, Congress in 1934 passed the Indian Reorganization Act and brought the era of allotment to a close. The Act, codified in 25 U.S.C. §§ 461 et seq., marked a return to the pre-GAA policy of tribal self-governance by proscribing any further allotments and extending indefinitely any trust periods then existing under a trust patent. 11 The Act also authorized the return to tribal ownership of any unallotted surplus Indian lands. 12 "Except by authorizing reacquisition of allotted lands in trust, however, Congress made no attempt to undo the The Quinault Indian Reservation was established by the Treaty with the Qui-nai-elts in 1859, otherwise known as the "Treaty of Olympia." 15 The Quinault Indian Nation is the federally recognized governing body on the Quinault Indian Reservation. 16 The allotment process began on the Reservation in 1905. By 1934, when Congress halted all further allotments of tribal lands, approximately 2,340 trust allotments had been issued. 17
land would be held by the United States in trust for a period of twenty-five years or longer. 5 During the trust period, allotted parcels were held "for the sole use and benefit of the Indian to whom such allotment shall have been made," but restrictions on alienation of the land remained in effect. 6 Upon expiration of the trust period, a fee patent would then issue to the Indian allottee removing "all restrictions as to sale, encumbrance, or taxation of said land." 7 The GAA also provided that upon issuance of the fee patent, "each and every allottee shall have the benefit of and be subject to the laws, both civil and criminal, of the State or Territory in which they may reside." 8 The latter provision served to further Congress' goal of Indian assimilation. 9
dramatic effects of the allotment years on the ownership of former Indian [now fee patented] lands. It neither imposed restraints on the ability of Indian allottees to alienate or encumber their fee-patented lands, nor impaired the rights of those non-Indians who had acquired title to over two-thirds of the Indian lands allotted under the [GAA]." 13 Even reacquisition by an Indian tribe of fee patented lands does not then reinstate the former restrictions on alienation or encumbrance of the lands. 14
The trial court concluded it had in rem jurisdiction over A & M's lawsuit. That conclusion is in accord with the language of the GAA and the United States Supreme Court's decision in County of Yakima v. Yakima Indian Nation. 18
In County of Yakima, the county sought to foreclose on properties located within the confines of the Yakima Indian Reservation for failure to pay ad valorem taxes on The Court ruled against the Nation and upheld...
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