ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND INDUS. CORP. v. US, Civ. A. No. 78-1247-N.
| Decision Date | 08 September 1982 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 78-1247-N. |
| Citation | 546 F. Supp. 1204 |
| Parties | ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND INDUSTRIAL CORPORATION OF BOSTON and Government Land Bank, Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
Stephen Carr Anderson, Rackemann, Sawyer & Brewster, Boston, Mass., for Economic Development & Indus. Corp. of Boston.
Daniel B. Bickford, Gaston Snow & Ely Bartlett, Boston, Mass., for Government Land Bank.
Barbara S. Gard, Douglas B. MacDonald, Boston, Mass., for Massachusetts Port Authority.
William E. Hill, Dept. of Justice, Land & Natural Resource Div., Washington, D.C., for USA & GSA.
At issue in the present action is the title to a 2.18-acre parcel of land, known as "Parcel 2," which comprises a portion of what was once the South Boston Naval Annex and what has since become the Boston Marine Industrial Park. In order to permit the enlargement of the Navy's dry dock facilities, the Commonwealth in 1941 granted title to and ceded exclusive jurisdiction over this property to the United States, but with the express reservation that both title and exclusive jurisdiction would revert to the Commonwealth "whenever said areas shall cease to be used for naval purposes." In November 1975, this contingency occurred. As a result, the plaintiffs, which are the statutory successors-in-interest to the Commonwealth, contend that title to Parcel 2 was revested in them under the terms of the original grant. The United States, however, argues that the Commonwealth forfeited its possibility of reverter upon failure to comply with a 1956 recording statute. Both sides have moved for summary judgment upon a stipulated set of facts.
Resolution of this dispute hinges upon the interpretation, and the legal validity, of four Massachusetts statutes. The first has generated no disagreement. In accordance with the terms of U.S.Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 17,1 and with an emergency preamble,2 the 1941 Granting Act granted title to and ceded exclusive jurisdiction over Parcel 2 (and other designated properties) to the United States subject to three conditions. Mass.St. 1941, c. 535. First, the Commonwealth reserved the right to serve civil and criminal process within the ceded property for offenses committed and taxes incurred elsewhere. Second, as mandated generally by the provisions of 40 U.S.C. § 255 (1970), exclusive jurisdiction would vest in the United States only after an agent designated by the Secretary of Navy had filed with the Secretary of State of the Commonwealth a copy of the plan of Parcel 2 authenticated by signature and certification of authority. Finally, the act provided that "the title to, and the exclusive jurisdiction over, said areas shall revert to and revest in the commonwealth whenever said areas shall cease to be used for naval purposes."3 The Commandant of the Boston Navy Yard accepted jurisdiction of the ceded property by letter to the Secretary of the Commonwealth dated October 14, 1941.
Some fifteen years later, the Commonwealth enacted a statute entitled "An Act Protecting Title to Land against Certain Rights of Entry and Possibilities of Reverter and Limiting the Bringing of Proceedings to Enforce Such Rights." Mass.St. 1956, c. 258. Section two of this act amended chapter 260 of the Massachusetts General Laws by inserting section 31A, which provided in pertinent part as follows: "No proceeding based upon any ... possibility of reverter ... created before January 2, 1955 shall be maintained either at law or in equity in any court after January 1, 1966,4 unless on or before" that date the holder of the reversionary interest had filed a written notice and description of his claim in the registry of deeds. The act further stated that "this section shall apply to all such rights whether or not the owner thereof is ... a government or governmental subdivision ...." The parties have stipulated that neither the Commonwealth nor any officer, instrumentality, or agency thereof has ever recorded notice of the possibility of reverter in Parcel 2 created by the 1941 Granting Act.
Two subsequent amendments to the Recording Act, both of direct relevance to the instant dispute, complete the pertinent statutory background. Mass.St.1968, c. 496 explicitly excluded the Commonwealth from the operation of the statute by inserting the following underscored language: "This section shall apply to all such rights whether or not the owner thereof is ... a government or governmental subdivision other than the commonwealth ...." Finally, perceiving a need for even greater clarity, the legislature in 1974 enacted clarifying legislation "to immediately ... fix with certainty our intent with respect to the applicability of certain of our statutes to the commonwealth." Mass.St.1974, c. 527. In a "statement of legislative purpose," the statute indicated as follows:
The general court notes that the insertion in the General Laws of G.L. c. 260, § 31A ... has, contrary to the legislative intent thereof, created the misapprehension that it applied to lands owned and conveyed by the commonwealth subject to certain limitations. The general court further notes that, despite the long-standing canon of statutory construction that a procedural statute has retrospective as well as prospective effect, some misapprehension exists as to the proper construction of said section thirty-one A, as amended in 1968. In order that the original intent of the legislature might now be clarified and the inapplicability of the above mentioned statutes to commonwealth grants and conveyances might be fixed with certainty, the general court deems it necessary and in the public interest to enact this clarifying legislation.
The statute went on to provide in sections four and six as follows:
As noted above, the United States ceased using Parcel 2 for naval purposes in November 1975, some sixteen months after the enactment of this clarifying legislation. During this time, the federal government engaged in the process of "surplusing" the South Boston Naval Annex as excess real property, in accordance with 40 U.S.C. § 484 (1970). By deed dated June 14, 1977, the United States conveyed its interest in the annex, including Parcel 2, to the plaintiff Government Land Bank for a consideration of $4,290,000.5 The Land Bank immediately reconveyed its interest in the property to the plaintiff Economic Development and Industrial Corporation,6 subject to a mortgage securing a loan from the Land Bank to EDIC for the full purchase price. In reflection of the dispute surrounding title to Parcel 2, the agreed-upon value of that parcel — $1,587,300 — was deducted from the purchase price and placed in an escrow account pending adjudication of this issue.7
The plaintiffs advance three principal contentions in their effort to elude the strictures of the Recording Act. First, they argue that the Commonwealth was under no duty to record its possibility of reverter because post-cession enactments of the ceding jurisdiction have no application within the ceded enclave absent express adoption by Congress. Second, the Recording Act, by its original terms and as reinforced by the 1974 expression of legislative intent, is said to have been inapplicable to all reversionary interests of the Commonwealth. And finally, even if the act was initially applicable, it is argued that the 1968 exclusion of the Commonwealth, expressly made retroactive in 1974, effected a valid revival of the Commonwealth's interest before any right to enforce that interest had accrued.8
The first issue has created the anomalous situation in which the state instrumentalities seek to maximize the scope of the federal government's exclusive jurisdiction over enclaves, particularly the preclusive effect of that jurisdiction on state legislation, while the United States seeks to downplay its powers in this regard. It has long been established that, when the United States has accepted exclusive jurisdiction over territory pursuant to U.S.Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 17, all state law in effect on the date of cession and not inconsistent with federal use of the property is assimilated as federal law within the enclave, but that subsequent state enactments have no application therein unless adopted by Congress.9 E.g., United States v. State Tax Comm., 412 U.S. 363, 369-73, 93 S.Ct. 2183, 2188, 37 L.Ed.2d 1 (1973); Paul v. United States, 371 U.S. 245, 263, 268, 83 S.Ct. 426, 437, 439, 9 L.Ed.2d 292 (1963); Pacific Coast Dairy, Inc. v. Dep't of Agric., 318 U.S. 285, 294, 63 S.Ct. 628, 630, 87 L.Ed. 761 (1943); Stewart & Co. v. Sadrakula, 309 U.S. 94, 100, 60 S.Ct. 431, 434, 84 L.Ed. 596 (1940). Invoking these rules, courts have dismissed as inapplicable to federal enclaves a host of state laws regulating everything from the price of milk, Pacific Coast Dairy, Inc. v. Dep't of Agric., 318 U.S. at 295, 63 S.Ct. at 630, to workmen's compensation. Employers' Liab. Assur. Corp. v. DiLeo, 298 Mass. 401, 10 N.E.2d 251 (1937).10 The plaintiffs assert that the regulatory scheme imposed by the Recording Act, with its attendant alteration of substantive rights in land, similarly must be deemed inapplicable to the Commonwealth's possibility of reverter in a federal...
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