Coastal Petroleum Co. v. American Cyanamid Co.

• Decision Date: 15 May 1986
• Docket Number: Nos. 65696,65755 and 65913,s. 65696
• Citation: 11 Fla. L. Weekly 223,492 So.2d 339
• Parties: 11 Fla. L. Weekly 223 COASTAL PETROLEUM COMPANY, Petitioner, v. AMERICAN CYANAMID COMPANY, et al., Respondents. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND of the State of Florida, Petitioner, v. AMERICAN CYANAMID COMPANY, et al., Respondents. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND of the State of Florida, Petitioner, v. MOBIL OIL CORPORATION, Respondent.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 339

492 So.2d 339

11 Fla. L. Weekly 223

COASTAL PETROLEUM COMPANY, Petitioner, v. AMERICAN CYANAMID COMPANY, et al., Respondents.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND of the State of Florida, Petitioner, v. AMERICAN CYANAMID COMPANY, et al., Respondents.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the INTERNAL IMPROVEMENT TRUST FUND of the State of Florida, Petitioner, v. MOBIL OIL CORPORATION, Respondent.

Nos. 65696, 65755 and 65913.

Supreme Court of Florida.

May 15, 1986.

Rehearing Denied May 30, 1986.

Robert J. Angerer, Tallahassee, C. Dean Reasoner of Reasoner, David and Fox, Washington, D.C., and Joseph C. Jacobs of Ervin, Varn, Jacobs, Odom and Kitchen, Tallahassee, for petitioner, Coastal Petroleum Co.

Julian Clarkson of Holland and Knight, Tallahassee, for respondents, American Cyanamid Co., Estech, Inc. and Mobil Oil Corp. in No. 65696.

Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, Robert J. Beckham of Beckham, McAliley and Schulz, Jacksonville, and Roberts, Miller Baggett, LaFace, Richard & Wiser, Tallahassee, James R. Hubbard of the Law Offices of James R. Hubbard, and William C. Crenshaw of Valdes-Fauli, Cobb and Petrey, Miami, for petitioner, The Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund of the State of Florida.

Chesterfield Smith, Julian Clarkson and Hume F. Coleman of Holland and Knight, Tallahassee, for respondents, American Cyanamid Company, and Estech, Inc. in No. 65755 and for respondent Mobil Oil Corp. in No. 65913.

Robert J. Angerer, Tallahassee, C. Dean Reasoner of Reasoner, Davis and Fox, Washington, D.C., and Joseph C. Jacobs of Ervin, Varn, Jacobs, Odom and Kitchen, Tallahassee, for amicus curiae, Coastal Petroleum Co.

Joseph W. Little, and Richard G. Hamann, Gainesville, for amicus curiae, The Florida Defenders Of The Environment.

SHAW, Justice.

These consolidated cases are before us on petitions to review decisions of the Second District Court of Appeal reported as Coastal Petroleum Co. v. American Cyanamid Co., 454 So.2d 6 (Fla. 2d DCA 1984), and Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund v. Mobil Oil Corp., 455 So.2d 412 (Fla. 2d DCA 1984), in which the following questions were certified as being of great public importance:

I. Do the 1883 swamp and overflowed lands deeds issued by the trustees include sovereignty lands below the ordinary high-water mark of navigable rivers?

II. Does the doctrine of legal estoppel or estoppel by deed apply to 1883 swamp and overflowed deeds barring the trustees' assertion of title to sovereignty lands?

III. Does the marketable record title act, chapter 712, Florida Statutes, operate to divest the trustees of title to sovereignty lands below the ordinary high-water mark of navigable rivers?

American Cyanamid Co., 454 So.2d 6, 9-10. We have jurisdiction pursuant to article V, section 3(b)(4), Florida Constitution, and answer all three questions in the negative.

In 1982 and 1983, respondents filed separate quiet title actions in Polk County Circuit Court against petitioners claiming fee simple title to portions of the beds of the Peace and Alafia rivers. In each case, petitioners moved to dismiss the suits to quiet title based on Mabie v. Garden Street Management Corp., 397 So.2d 920 (Fla.1981). The trial court denied the motions. Respondents then moved for summary judgments in their respective cases. The trial court granted said motions.

The Second District Court of Appeal affirmed the summary judgments in separate opinions filed on July 13, 1984. 454 So.2d 6; 455 So.2d 412. In American Cyanamid, the district court held that under section 197.228(2), Florida Statutes (1981), this state's unconditional conveyance of land to private individuals without reservation of public rights contemplated a finding that the land is not sovereignty land; that the Trustees were barred from asserting a sovereignty title claim by the doctrine of legal estoppel; and, that Florida's Marketable Record Title Act barred any otherwise valid sovereignty title claim. 454 So.2d at 8, 9. Recognizing, however, the significant impact of its decision on the riverbeds at issue, the district court certified to this Court the aforementioned three questions as being of great public importance. Id.

In Mobil Oil, the district court held that the Polk County Circuit Court did not err in denying petitioner Trustees' motion in the alternative because the Leon County Circuit Court lacked jurisdiction over the subject matter of respondent Mobil's reply counterclaim for the reason that the counterclaim is in rem in nature and local to Polk County Circuit Court. 455 So.2d at 416. The district court further noted that the substantive issues raised by petitioner Trustees were decided adversely to the Trustees in American Cyanamid. Id. By order of September 4, 1984, the district court certified to this Court the same three questions certified in American Cyanamid.

The first certified question is premised on the uncontroverted legal proposition that Florida received title to all lands beneath navigable waters, up to the ordinary high water mark, as an incident of sovereignty, when it became a state in 1845. No patents or surveys were required to delineate the boundaries of such sovereignty lands and title vested in the state to be held as a public trust. Thereafter, the federal government did not hold title to such sovereignty lands and had no power to convey them to either the state or other parties. Moreover, any surveys run by the federal government establishing meander lines were not conclusive against the state as the boundary lines between state sovereignty lands and federal uplands. Borax Consolidated Ltd. v. City of Los Angeles, 296 U.S. 10, 56 S.Ct. 23, 80 L.Ed. 9 (1935); Martin v. Busch, 93 Fla. 535, 112 So. 274 (1927). ¹

In contrast to state sovereignty lands, the title to non-navigable swamp and overflowed lands, and other federal uplands, continued to reside in the federal government after 1845. However, in the 1850s, Congress exercised its power by conveying swamp and overflow uplands to the state. Surveys were conducted and patents issued whereby Florida received approximately twenty million acres of such lands. It is important to recognize that Congress had no intent or power to convey state sovereignty lands through such acts or patents and that land surveys conducted in connection with these conveyances of swamp and overflowed lands are not conclusive against the state as to the meandered boundaries of state sovereignty lands. See Borax Consolidated, Ltd., 296 U.S. at 16, 56 S.Ct. at 26, citing to and relying on Donnelly v. United States, 228 U.S. 243, 33 S.Ct. 449, 57 L.Ed. 820 (1913); Mobile Transportation Co. v. City of Mobile, 187 U.S. 479, 23 S.Ct. 170, 47 L.Ed. 266 (1903); Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 1, 14 S.Ct. 548, 38 L.Ed. 331 (1894); Goodtitle ex dem. Pollard v. Kibbe, 50 U.S. (9 How.) 471, 13 L.Ed. 220 (1850); and Pollard v. Hagan, 44 U.S. (3 How.) 212, 11 L.Ed. 565 (1845). The title to swamp and overflowed lands which Florida received in the 1850s and thereafter was vested in the Board of Trustees for the Internal Improvement Fund of Florida by the legislature. The title to sovereignty lands at this point remained in the legislature as a public trust. Illinois Central Railroad v. Illinois, 146 U.S. 387, 13 S.Ct. 110, 36 L.Ed. 1018 (1892); Broward v. Mabry, 58 Fla. 298, 50 So. 826 (1909); State v. Black River Phosphate Co., 32 Fla. 82, 13 So. 640 (1893). These lands differ from other state lands. Sovereignty lands are for public use, "not for the purpose of sale or conversion into other values, or reduction into several or individual ownership." State v. Gerbing, 56 Fla. 603, 608, 47 So. 353, 355 (1908). Even after title to sovereignty lands was subsequently assigned to the Trustees, their authority to dispose of the land was rigidly circumscribed by court decisions and was separate and distinct from their authority to dispose of swamp and overflowed lands. ² We answered the first certified question in the negative when we held in Martin, 93 Fla. at 573, 112 So. at 286-87 that:

The State Trustee defendants cannot, by allegation, averment or admission in pleadings or otherwise affect the legal status of or the State's title to sovereignty, swamp and overflowed or other lands held by the Trustees under different statutes for distinct and definite State purposes.... The subsequent vesting of title to sovereignty lands in the Trustees for State purposes under the Acts of 1919 or other statutes does not make the title to sovereignty land inure to claimants under a previous conveyance of swamp and overflowed lands by the State Trustees who then had no authority to convey such sovereignty lands and did not attempt or intend to convey sovereignty lands.

Further,

[i]f by mistake or otherwise sales or conveyances are made by the Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund of sovereignty lands, such as lands under navigable waters in the State or tide lands, or if such Trustees make sales and conveyances of State School lands, as and for swamp and overflowed lands, under the authority given such Trustees to convey swamp and overflowed lands, such sales and conveyances are ineffectual for lack of authority from the state.

Id. at 569, 112 So. at 285 (citations omitted).

The court below relied in part on the provisions of section 197.228(2), Florida Statutes (1981), which provides:

(2) Navigable waters in this state shall not be held to extend to any permanent or transient waters in the form of so-called lakes, ponds, swamps or overflowed lands, lying over and upon areas which have heretofore been conveyed to private individuals by the United States or by the state without reservation of public rights in and to said waters.

We do not agree that this section is pertinent to the issues at hand. We are dealing with navigable rivers not "so-called lakes, ponds, swamps, or overflowed lands." We are not persuaded that the legislature...