Federal Youth Center v. District Court In and For Jefferson County

• Decision Date: 21 February 1978
• Docket Number: No. 27869,27869
• Citation: 575 P.2d 395,195 Colo. 55
• Parties: The FEDERAL YOUTH CENTER, an Agency of the United States of America, Petitioner, v. The DISTRICT COURT IN AND FOR the COUNTY OF JEFFERSON, State of Colorado and the Judge thereof, the Honorable Joseph P. Lewis, Respondents.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 395

575 P.2d 395

195 Colo. 55

The FEDERAL YOUTH CENTER, an Agency of the United States of America, Petitioner, v. The DISTRICT COURT IN AND FOR the COUNTY OF JEFFERSON, State of Colorado and the Judge thereof, the Honorable Joseph P. Lewis, Respondents.

No. 27869.

Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc.

Feb. 21, 1978.

Rehearing Denied March 13, 1978.

James W. Moorman, Asst. Atty. Gen., Washington, D.C., James L. Treece, U.S. Atty., Denver, Edmund B. Clark, Hank Meshorer, Trial Attys., Dept. of Justice, Land & Natural Resources Div., Denver, Maryann Walsh, Atty., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., for petitioner.

Galligan & Foley, Gerald H. Galligan, Richard B. Foley, Denver, for respondents.

Dawson, Nagel, Sherman & Howard, Gary L. Greer, William R. March, James M. King, Denver, for amicus curiae, The Warrior Ditch Co.

J. D. MacFarlane, Atty. Gen., David W. Robbins, Deputy Atty. Gen., Edward G. Donovan, Sol. Gen., Gregory J. Hobbs, Jr., 1st Asst. Atty. Gen., John C. Ohrenschall, Asst. Atty. Gen., Denver, for amicus curiae Mountain View State Industrial School for Girls a/k/a Mountain View Girls' School.

CARRIGAN, Justice.

This is an original proceeding brought pursuant to C.A.R. 21. The Federal Youth Center, an agency of the United States of America, has petitioned for a writ prohibiting the respondent district court from asserting jurisdiction over it in an action to quiet title to certain water rights. We issued a rule to show cause, and now discharge the rule.

I. HISTORY OF THE LITIGATION.

Dudley Taylor, the plaintiff in the district court, filed an action seeking to quiet title to the first sixty statutory inches of water in the Warrior Ditch, which takes water from Bear Creek under an adjudicated priority. Taylor claims title to the water by virtue of conveyance as well as by adverse possession. He has named as parties-defendant those who might claim adversely to his title, including primarily the stockholders of the Warrior Ditch Company. The ditch company filed an answer alleging that water appropriated by the Warrior Ditch had been decreed to the company, and therefore belonged to its stockholders as co-owners.

On January 7, 1976, the Federal Youth Center, one of the named defendants and a stockholder in the Warrior Ditch Company, filed a petition for removal to the United States District Court on the ground that it is an agency of the United States. Upon removal, the Center asserted that the state court had no jurisdiction because the United States had not waived its sovereign immunity. The United States District Court ordered that the case be remanded to the state court, finding that even if removal may have been permissible, the case should be remanded for the reasons stated in Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 96 S.Ct. 1236, 47 L.Ed.2d 483 (1976). ¹ The sovereign immunity issue was not addressed in the remand order.

The Federal Youth Center then entered a special appearance in the respondent Colorado district court, for the sole purpose of filing a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction over the Center, as an agency of the United States. The respondent court denied the motion, finding that it had jurisdiction and that the Youth Center should not be dismissed on sovereign immunity grounds. It is from that order that the petitioner brings this original proceeding asking that we prohibit the district court from exercising jurisdiction. We have concluded that, under the special circumstances here presented, the district court has jurisdiction over the Youth Center as an instrumentality of the United States. Therefore, we hold that the motion to dismiss was properly denied.

II. QUESTIONS PRESENTED.

The United States relies upon the premise, well-established by precedent, that it cannot be subjected to the jurisdiction of any court without the consent of Congress. E.g., Dalehite v. United States, 346 U.S. 15, 73 S.Ct. 956, 97 L.Ed. 1427 (1953); United States v. District Court in and for the County of Eagle, 169 Colo. 555, 458 P.2d 760 (1969), aff'd, 401 U.S. 520, 91 S.Ct. 998, 28 L.Ed.2d 278 (1971). It is argued that the only possible sources of consent are 28 U.S.C. § 2409a and 43 U.S.C. § 666, but that neither section applies to this case. The respondent concedes that 28 U.S.C. § 2409a by its terms is inapplicable; ² therefore we need to discuss only the applicability of 43 U.S.C. § 666, the "McCarran Amendment."

III. APPLICABILITY OF THE McCARRAN AMENDMENT.

A. General Scope.

The McCarran Amendment provides, in pertinent part, as follows:

" § 666. Suits for adjudication of water rights Joinder of United States as defendant; costs.

(a) Consent is given to join the United States as a defendant in any suit (1) for the adjudication of rights to the use of water of a river system or other source, or (2) for the administration of such rights, where it appears that the United States is the owner of or is in the process of acquiring water rights by appropriation under State law, by purchase, by exchange, or otherwise, and the United States is a necessary party to such suit. The United States, when a party to any such suit, shall (1) be deemed to have waived any right to plead that the State laws are inapplicable or that the United States is not amenable thereto by reason of its sovereignty, and (2) shall be subject to the judgments, orders, and decrees of the court having jurisdiction, and may obtain review thereof, in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances: Provided, That no judgment for costs shall be entered against the United States in any such suit." 43 U.S.C. § 666 (Emphasis added.)

The precise issue which we address is whether an action to quiet title to water rights in a Colorado district court falls within this statutory consent to jurisdiction. We hold that it does.

Numerous cases have construed the McCarran Amendment, and to some extent they have defined the limits of its operation. See, e.g., Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States, supra; United States v. District Court in and for the County of Eagle, supra; United States v. District Court in and for Water Division No. 5, 401 U.S. 527, 91 S.Ct. 1003, 28 L.Ed.2d 284 (1971); Dugan v. Rank, 372 U.S. 609, 83 S.Ct. 999, 10 L.Ed.2d 15 (1963). However, the precise question here at issue has not previously been considered. Despite this lack of precedent, it is apparent from the statute's broad language and underlying policy that the United States has consented to be made a party to actions of this type.

It is important to note at the outset that § 666(a) consents to joinder of the United States in two types of suits: "(1) for the adjudication of rights to the use of water of a river system or other source, or (2) for the administration of such rights." (Emphasis added.) See United States v. District Court in and for the County of Eagle, supra, 401 U.S. at 524, 91 S.Ct. at 1002, 28 L.Ed.2d at 282. Nearly every case which has discussed this statute has concentrated on the meaning and scope of subsection (a)(1), and it is clear from reading those cases that the "adjudication" referred to was not intended to encompass the type of litigation presented in this case. An action to quiet title to water rights does not involve either a "general" or "supplemental" adjudication of rights to the use of water in a river system or other source, as those terms have been construed in earlier cases. United States v. District Court in and for the County of Eagle, supra; United States v. District Court in and for Water Division No. 5, supra; Dugan v. Rank, supra.

It is also apparent, however, that the statutory consent is not limited solely to general or supplemental adjudications. If that had been the intent, there would have been no reason to include subsection (a)(2), which deals with suits involving the "administration" of water rights which the United States owns or is in the process of acquiring. Rather, reading the entire section as an integrated whole leads us to conclude that once a legal proceeding within the scope of § 666(a)(1) has determined the relative rights of claimants to the waters of a river system or other source, and a decree adjudicating those rights has been entered, Congress has given its consent, under § 666(a)(2), to any suit properly commenced for the administration of such rights. United States v. Hennen, 300 F.Supp. 256 (D.Nev.1968).

The ultimate question, then, is whether an action to quiet title to previously adjudicated water rights is a proceeding "administering" those rights, within the purview of § 666(a)(2). We hold that it is.

B. Statutory Language.

In support of this conclusion, we first refer briefly to the language of the statute, supra. It would be difficult to draft a provision more all-inclusive than § 666(a)(2). As the court noted in United States v. Hennen, supra : "To administer a decree is to execute it, to enforce its provisions, to resolve conflicts as to its meaning, to construe and to interpret its language." 300 F.Supp. at 263. In short, a suit for the "administration" of water rights could be virtually any action concerning the status of those rights as they had been previously adjudicated. Clearly, a suit designed to determine the true ownership of a particular water right falls within this broad language since its determination affects any continued water use by each of the various claimants involved.

C. Policy and Legislative Intent.

Perhaps more importantly, the underlying policies which supported enactment of the McCarran Amendment also support the construction of the statute which we today adopt. The committee report reads in part as follows:

"It is most clear that where water rights have been adjudicated by a court and its final decree entered, or where such rights are in the course of adjudication by a court, the court adjudicating or having adjudicated such rights is...