Askew v. Sonson

• Decision Date: 23 July 1981
• Docket Number: No. 53843,53843
• Citation: 409 So.2d 7
• Parties: Reubin O'D. ASKEW, et al., Appellants, v. Stephen R. SONSON, et ux., Appellees.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 7

409 So.2d 7

Reubin O'D. ASKEW, et al., Appellants, v. Stephen R. SONSON, et ux., Appellees.

No. 53843.

Supreme Court of Florida.

July 23, 1981.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 18, 1982.

Jack W. Pierce, Tallahassee, and Henry Dean, Gen. Counsel, S. Sherman Weiss, Richard P. Ludington, Director, Division of State Lands, Dept. of Natural Resources/Bd. of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund, Tallahassee, for appellants.

Kenneth L. Ryskamp of Goodwin, Ryskamp, Welcher & Carrier, Miami, for appellees.

Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., J. Kendrick Tucker, Deputy Atty. Gen., and David K. Miller, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for Attorney General, amicus curiae.

Paul J. Stichler, Orlando, for Lawyers' Title Guaranty Fund, amicus curiae.

J. Richard Harris of Scott, Burk, Royce, Harris & Loucks, Palm Beach, for the Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section of The Florida Bar, amicus curiae.

Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., David K. Miller, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Herbert D. Sikes, Tallahassee, for State Bd. of Ed., amicus curiae.

Peter Guarisco, Tallahassee, for Florida Land Title Ass'n, Inc. and Florida Title Underwriters Bureau, amicus curiae.

Chesterfield Smith and Wofford H. Stidham of Holland & Knight, Tallahassee, for Mobil Oil Corp., amicus curiae.

ADKINS, Justice.

This is a direct appeal from a partial summary final judgment quieting title in favor of appellees (hereinafter referred to as plaintiffs) against the appellants (hereinafter referred to as defendants) based upon the application of the Marketable Record Title Act (chapter 712, Florida Statutes).

Plaintiff's complaint alleged their "root of title" had remained of record and unchallenged for a period in excess of thirty years and requested that the court foreclose any claim of defendants as Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund. Defendants, by affirmative defenses, contended that the application of the Marketable Record Title The land involved was granted to the state by act of Congress in 1845, the year Florida was admitted to the Union. In 1917 drainage taxes were assessed against the property by the Southern Drainage District pursuant to chapter 7599, Laws of Florida, Acts of 1917. The land was sold to the District for the taxes due. This tax sale was held invalid under a previous decision of this Court. Southern Drainage District v. State, 93 Fla. 672, 112 So. 561 (1927).

Act against defendants would be unconstitutional since the lands involved were section sixteen lands which are designated for school purposes. The summary judgment entered for plaintiffs rejected defendants' argument that chapter 712, Florida Statutes, was unconstitutional as applied to the facts of the case and the land in question, and extinguished defendants' claims. This appeal resulted. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla.Const. (1972).

Plaintiffs' claim is not based upon the tax sale. The "root of title" goes back to the following: A warranty deed from Edwards to Malon Holding Company in 1926; a warranty deed from West to McKool in 1928; and a warranty deed from Lawrence to McKool in 1927. Since the last "root of title" no instrument contradicting plaintiffs' claim has been placed of record for more than thirty years and no notice of claim pursuant to section 712.05, Florida Statutes (1975), has been filed by the defendants which would protect their rights under the Marketable Record Title Act.

The purported unconstitutional proceedings against school lands for the collection of drainage taxes (which resulted in the tax sale) were concluded in 1922. If the root of title in the instant case was based upon a "wild deed" the prior tax proceedings would be rendered irrelevant. We have held that "initially void tax title claims" can ripen into incontestable title through the Marketable Record Title Act. See Marshall v. Hollywood, Inc., 236 So.2d 114 (Fla.), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 964, 91 S.Ct. 366, 27 L.Ed.2d 384 (1970).

We must determine whether the Marketable Record Title Act may constitutionally divest the state of title to lands which were granted for school purposes, including the sixteenth section in each Township.

After deliberating on this issue we decided to request additional briefs on the following question: "Are state properties affected by the marketable record title act, and if so, what categories are affected?"

We were furnished excellent briefs by amici curiae and the parties. The order requesting additional briefs restated and broadened the questions initially presented, so as to include the application of the marketable record title act to all state lands, of which section sixteen lands are merely one category. The question framed by the Court encompasses all categories of state properties, including sovereignty lands. Among the other categories of state properties are internal improvement lands, swamp and overflow lands, railroad lands, indemnity lands, and Murphy Act lands. The amici curiae urge the Court to reserve ruling on those arguments until they are presented in the context of a proper controversy. In other words, they urge us to confine our ruling to the question initially presented.

It is a wise rule that courts will only determine issues which are based on a genuine controversy, supported by a sufficient factual predicate. This rule is particularly appropriate where complex issues of great public interest are concerned. This Court has stated that it will not address issues, particularly those of constitutional import, which are neither directly presented nor necessary to the resolution of the dispute at hand. See e. g., Pace v. King, 38 So.2d 823, 827 (Fla.1949); W. S. Badcock Corp. v. Kunze, 126 Fla. 725, 171 So. 657, 658 (1936). See also Daggett v. Willey, 6 Fla. 482, 511-512 (1855).

Chapter 78-288, Laws of Florida, amended chapter 712 (marketable record title act, hereinafter referred to as MRTA), so as to provide that the MRTA should not affect or extinguish "(s)tate title to lands beneath navigable waters acquired by virtue of sovereignty." § 712.03(7), Fla.Stat. (Supp.1978).

It is clear that in no case does the MRTA serve to protect a private party's title to sovereignty lands if title had not been perfected prior to the effective date of the 1978 amendment. We do not now pass on the question of whether a private owner's title to what had been sovereignty lands could be perfected by the MRTA prior to the effective date of the 1978 amendment. See Odom v. Deltona Corp., 341 So.2d 977, 988 (Fla.1976).

In the case we are now considering we limit our discussion to the question of whether the MRTA may constitutionally divest the state of title to lands which were granted for school purposes, including the sixteenth section in each township.

By an act of Congress on March 3, 1845, entitled "An Act Supplementary to an Act for the Admission of Florida and Iowa into the Union, and for Other Purposes," the state of Florida was granted the sixteenth section in every township for the use of the inhabitants of such township for the support of public schools. This grant was made in consideration of concessions made by the state of Florida.

The grant contained a provision for giving other land in lieu of the sixteenth section. Prior to the grant, portions of the territory of Florida had been encumbered in the Articles of Cession and other portions by Congress in the fulfillment of public obligations. This interfered with the general policy of setting apart the sixteenth section for school purposes.

In some instances, settlements with a view to preemption or homestead had been made in the sixteenth section; some of the sixteenth sections were mineral land or embraced within a military, Indian, or other reservation; and some sixteenth sections were fractional in quantity, or wanting by reason of the township being fractional, or from natural cause. For these reasons Congress passed what is known as the "Lieu Land Statute" which authorized the state to select unappropriated government lands in lieu of the deficiency in the short sections. See 43 U.S.C.A. § 851 (1976); Hampton v. Matheson, 121 Fla. 768, 164 So. 714 (1935).

By an act of the legislature, section 6.01, Florida Statutes, approved July 25, 1845, the state assented to the terms of admission into the union and to the provisions of the acts of Congress respecting the public lands of the United States in this state. When, by survey, a sixteenth section, or fractional part thereof, was ascertained to exist in any township, the grant immediately attached thereto without a patent and related back to the date of the act of Congress. State ex rel. Kittel v. Jennings, 47 Fla. 302, 35 So. 986 (1904).

This grant of school lands was an absolute grant, vesting title in the state of Florida. The nature of the title was discussed in Hampton v. State Board of Education, 90 Fla. 88, 105 So. 323 (1925). This was a suit by Hampton against the State Board of Education seeking specific performance of a contract to sell school lands. The Court held that the suit was predicated directly upon a contract made by state officers representing the state and was in effect a suit against the state without its consent. The suit was therefore properly dismissed. The Court, in its opinion, said:

By sections 602, 603 and 3798, Revised General Statutes, 1920, the state retains the title to all state school lands and merely authorizes the state board of education to take possession of, to manage, to preserve and to fix the terms of sale, and to convey the title to "all lands granted to or held by the state for educational purposes." Under these statutes the title remains in the state and the state officers have no title, but a mere power of agency to sell the lands, not for trust purposes of an administrative nature, but such sales are for "the principal of the state school fund" which "shall remain sacred and inviolate." Sections 4 and 5, art. 12, Constitution. In view of these organic and statutory...