City of Los Angeles v. Borax Consolidated Limited

• Decision Date: 14 January 1935
• Docket Number: No. 7427.,7427.
• Citation: 74 F.2d 901
• Parties: CITY OF LOS ANGELES v. BORAX CONSOLIDATED LIMITED et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

74 F.2d 901 (1935)

CITY OF LOS ANGELES v. BORAX CONSOLIDATED LIMITED et al.^*

No. 7427.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

January 14, 1935.

Ray L. Chesebro, City Atty., Robert F. Shippee, Asst. City Atty., and Loren A. Butts, all of Los Angeles, Cal., for appellants.

Newlin & Ashburn, of Los Angeles, Cal. (A. W. Ashburn, of Los Angeles, Cal., of counsel), for appellees.

Before WILBUR and GARRECHT, Circuit Judges.

WILBUR, Circuit Judge.

Appellant brought this action to quiet title to a portion of the shore of Mormon Island, situated within the Inner Bay of San Pedro Harbor. The appellant alleged that it was the owner of certain tidelands by virtue of a grant thereof by the state of California (St. Cal. 1911, p. 1256). These lands are described with particularity by metes and bounds. The appellees answered, denied title in the city, and alleged that the lands were not tidelands, and alleged that they were the owners of the lands described in the complaint. Appellees also, by way of counterclaim, alleged that the land in question belonged to the appellee Borax Consolidated Limited, an English corporation, and also by separate counterclaim alleged that the city was estopped to deny the ownership of said land by the appellee Borax Consolidated Limited, by reason of the inaction of the city and its officials during a long period of time in which the appellees expended more than a million dollars in improvement of the land in question. A third counterclaim sets up an estoppel by a judgment of dismissal which it is alleged was the result of a retraxit by the city and by the state of California in a prior action brought by the state of California before it had transferred title to the city of Los Angeles and dismissed after the city had acquired title. The appellees claim under a patent of the United States government issued to William Banning December 30, 1881 under the pre-emption laws of United States (enacted April 24, 1820 3 Stat. 566). The description in the patent is as follows:

"Lot numbered one, of section eight, in township five south, of range thirteen west of San Bernardino Meridian, in California, containing eighteen acres, and eighty-eight hundredths of an acre, according to the official plat of the survey of the said lands, returned to the General Land Office by the Surveyor General."

The plat referred to in the patent contains the following statement with reference to the lot in question: Meanders of shore of Mormon Island, surveyed by W. H. Norway under contract dated March 10, 1880, surveyed March 24, 1880, amount of survey 77 chains and 40 links. Area of land surveyed by Norway 18.88 acres. Meanders of the shore of Mormon Island beginning at the meander corner 1, at ordinary high-water mark; thence along the shore of the island. Then follows a statement of courses and distances from stations 1 to 14 and to the beginning.

It is clear from the plat that the lines in question were meander lines, and therefore that the boundary line of the land covered by the patent is the shore line of Mormon Island and not the traverse lines of the patent. Jefferis v. East Omaha Land Co., 134 U. S. 178, 10 S. Ct. 518, 523, 33 L. Ed. 872; St. Paul & P. Railroad Co. v. Schurmeir, 7 Wall. (74 U. S.) 272, 19 L. Ed. 74; St. Louis v. Rutz, 138 U. S. 226, 11 S. Ct. 337, 34 L. Ed. 941; Producers' Oil Co. v. Hanzen, 238 U. S. 325, 35 S. Ct. 755, 59 L. Ed. 1330; United States v. Boynton et al. (C. C. A.) 53 F.(2d) 297; Los Angeles v. S. P., L. A. & S. L. R. R. Co., 182 Cal. 652, 189 P. 449. This was the ruling by the Supreme Court of the state of California in an opinion written by the author of this opinion dealing with a similar description in the patent of Rancho San Pedro as it was affected by the lines of the Inner Bay exception. In that case the plat did not distinctly state that the lines of the patent were meander lines, but it is clearly inferable from the plat that the lines were meander lines. The rule in regard to meander lines is stated by the Supreme Court in Jefferis v. East Omaha Land Co., supra:

"Meander lines are run in surveying * * * public lands bordering upon navigable rivers, not as boundaries of the tract, but * * * as the means of ascertaining the quantity of the land * * * subject to sale, and * * * the water-course, and not the meander line, as actually run on the land, is the boundary."

In United States v. Boynton et al., 53 F. (2d) 297, 298, in an opinion written by District Judge James, this court held:

"Thus, the question we have to determine is whether Snow, in indicating a high-tide line, definitely fixed a shore line survey. Meander lines, as used in land surveys, where they indicate a course along navigable waters, refer to the line as the water itself may delineate it, subject to changes that different tides or water flows may work. St. Paul & P. R. Co. v. Schurmeir, 7 Wall. (74 U. S.) 272, 19 L. Ed. 74; Hardin v. Jordan, 140 U. S. 371, 11 S. Ct. 808, 838, 35 L. Ed. 428; Taylor v. United States (C. C. A.) 44 F.(2d) 531. Because a meander line, as carried into field notes, shows corners, posts, monuments, and courses, does not result in the line so delineated becoming definite and fixed. Some action must have been taken, or words used in the instrument of conveyance, which will show that the grantor has agreed that such line shall be considered as having more than its assigned character; it must be agreed that it indicates a definite boundary limit."

These principles are insisted upon by the appellant and are not disputed by the appellees. The difference between the parties in the case at bar arises from the fact that, according to the contention of the appellant, the stations 4 to 11, inclusive, and the meander line connecting them, all lie below the line of ordinary high tide. The lands claimed by the appellees lie within the traverse lines connecting stations 3 and 12 of the patent, and north of a line running north 78° 23" west, distant 345 feet connecting traverse lines last mentioned, the exact location of which is unnecessary to fix for our present purposes. The appellant's contention is that, inasmuch as the lines bounding Mormon Island are meander lines, the lines themselves may be wholly disregarded in fixing the position and area of the uplands of Mormon Island. The contention of the appellees is that it was the duty of the government surveyor who surveyed Mormon Island to determine the location of the boundary between the uplands which were to be conveyed by patent from the government, and the shore which belonged to the state by virtue of its sovereignty, and that the stations purporting to be on the shore line must be held as defining the shore line, and it is claimed in effect that, in the absence of proof of the exact location of the shore line between the stations, the traverse line should be taken as the shore line. The trial court sustained the appellees' contention and held that the shore line was conclusively determined by the patent and that the city could not prove its actual location.

Mormon Island, aside from a small area, is composed of mud flats, the surface of which is in places almost horizontal, and in other places the plane of the surface forms a very acute angle with the horizontal so the small additional rise of the tide will result in the flooding of a large area of the ground. At the time of the patent these lands were comparatively worthless, but, by reason of the improvement of Los Angeles Harbor by dredging and filling, they have become extremely valuable. The evidence shows that the city paid at the rate of $49,000 per acre for a portion of the unimproved upland of Mormon Island.

To support the conclusion of the trial court that the Surveyor General had jurisdiction to decide the location of the shore line and having done so that his determination is conclusive upon the courts, the case principally relied upon by the appellees is Knight v. United Land Ass'n, 142 U. S. 161, 12 S. Ct. 258, 35 L. Ed. 974, dealing with title to lands in Mission creek, a tidal tributary to San Francisco Bay. It was held by the Supreme Court in that case that the lines run by the Surveyor General in pursuance of a decree confirming a land grant by the republic of Mexico to the pueblo of San Francisco, purporting to follow the mean high tide line, was conclusive as to the location of that line, and therefore that the question of whether or not the submerged lands of Mission creek were conveyed by the patent to the pueblo was not open for consideration regardless of the question as to whether or not the lands, beneath Mission creek were tidelands. That case, however, has no application to the situation involved in the case at bar, as is clearly pointed out in the opinion. There the duty of ascertaining and delimiting Mexican grants was conferred upon the federal courts. The rights granted by Mexico to tidelands were prior to the rights thereto of our federal or state governments. Consequently, if the Mexican grant conveyed tidelands, the title thereto was vested in the grantee regardless of the fact that such land would otherwise belong to the state by virtue of its sovereignty. The determination of the lines of the Mexican grant was made by the federal government in the mode prescribed in order to comply with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (9 Stat. 922). As pointed out by Justice Field in his concurring opinion, 142 U. S. 161, 204, 12 S. Ct. 258, 35 L. Ed. 974, the Supreme Court of California, prior to the decision by it in the Knight Case (United Land Ass'n v. Knight), 85 Cal. 448, 24 P. 818, then under review, had consistently followed the rule that the lines of the United States patent confirming and delimiting the Mexican grant were conclusive. Moore v. Wilkinson, 13 Cal. 478; People v. San Francisco, 75 Cal. 388, 17 P. 522. No such situation is presented in the case at bar.

Here the title to the tidelands vested in the state of California long...