James v. Langford

• Decision Date: 19 May 1981
• Docket Number: No. CIV-75-461-D.,CIV-75-461-D.
• Citation: 558 F. Supp. 737
• Parties: David L. JAMES and Ollen James, Plaintiffs, Bruce Wright, Mary Ben Wright, and Anna Mae Stovall, Intervening Plaintiffs, v. P.P. LANGFORD, Linda Langford (Mrs. Jerry G.) Moore, Desiree Lynn Langford, Merissa Lafawn Langford, Shirley Langford, and the United States of America and the Commissioners of the Land Office, State of Oklahoma, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Oklahoma

558 F. Supp. 737

David L. JAMES and Ollen James, Plaintiffs Bruce Wright, Mary Ben Wright, and Anna Mae Stovall, Intervening Plaintiffs, v. P.P. LANGFORD, Linda Langford (Mrs. Jerry G.) Moore, Desiree Lynn Langford, Merissa Lafawn Langford, Shirley Langford, and the United States of America and the Commissioners of the Land Office, State of Oklahoma, Defendants.

No. CIV-75-461-D.

United States District Court, W.D. Oklahoma.

May 19, 1981.

Charles Nesbitt, Oklahoma City, Okl., James F. Howell, Midwest City, Okl., for intervenors.

John E. Green, Asst. U.S. Atty., Oklahoma City, Okl., Frank J. Douthitt and Robert F. Mitchell, Henrietta, Tex., Roland Tague, R.R. Williamson, Jr. and Clyde E. Fosdyke, Oklahoma City, Okl., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

DAUGHERTY, District Judge.

This is a declaratory judgment action to quiet title to real property lying in the bed of the Red River between Jefferson County, Oklahoma, and Clay County, Texas. The Court has subject matter jurisdiction over Plaintiffs' claims against the individual Defendants pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332 by reason of diversity of citizenship and amount in controversy and over Plaintiffs' claims against the Defendant United States of America pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(f) and 2409a. An extensive nonjury trial has been conducted herein and this matter is now ready for decision by the Court.

It appears from the record before the Court in this case that Plaintiffs David L. James and Ollen James (hereinafter referred to as Plaintiffs) originally commenced this action and are the surface owners of certain riparian lands on the Oklahoma side of the Red River in Jefferson County, Oklahoma, including all of Section 13, Township 5 South, Range 9 West of the Indian Meridian and Lots 1, 2, 3 and 4 of Section 24 of the same township. Plaintiffs claim ownership of the bed of the Red River to the south (west)¹ bank thereof opposite their land in Section 13 and to the medial line of the Red River bed opposite their lands in Section 24. The Court allowed the Intervening Plaintiffs, Bruce Wright, Mary Ben Wright and Anna Mae Stovall (hereinafter referred to as Intervenors), to intervene in this case as parties plaintiff as they own the minerals under Plaintiff's land in Section 24 and their interest is co-extensive with Plaintiffs' surface ownership in said section. The Commissioners of the Land Office of the State of Oklahoma (hereinafter referred to as Commissioners) were made a party to this case and are aligned with the Plaintiffs as the Commissioners own the minerals under Plaintiffs' land in Section 13 and any rights retained under a certificate of purchase issued to Plaintiffs thereon, and the Commissioners' mineral ownership is co-extensive with Plaintiffs' surface ownership in said section.

The Defendant United States of America claims ownership of the Red River bed from the medial line to the south (west) bank opposite all lands in Sections 13 and 24 as trustee for certain Indian tribes. Defendants P.P. Langford, Linda Langford (Mrs. Jerry G.) Moore, Desiree Lynn Langford, Merissa LaFawn Langford and Shirley Langford (hereinafter referred to as Defendants Langford) own lands on the Texas side of the Red River directly opposite Plaintiffs' lands in both sections and claim ownership to the south (west) bank of the Red River.

In Oklahoma v. Texas, 256 U.S. 70, 41 S.Ct. 420, 65 L.Ed. 831 (1921), the United States Supreme Court determined that the boundary between Oklahoma and Texas, as fixed by the Treaty of 1819 between the United States and Spain, was the south bank of the Red River. See United States v. Texas, 162 U.S. 1, 16 S.Ct. 725, 40 L.Ed. 867 (1896); see generally L. Miles, "Southern Boundary of Oklahoma," in Boundaries of Oklahoma 27 (J. Morris ed. 1980). Later in the course of the Oklahoma v. Texas litigation, the Supreme Court concluded that:

The cut bank along the southerly side of the sand bed constitutes the south bank of the river, and that the boundary is on and along that bank at the mean level of the water when it washes the bank without overflowing it.

The boundary as it was in 1821, when the treaty became effective, is the boundary of to-day, subject to the right application of the doctrines of erosion and accretion and of avulsion to any intervening changes.

Oklahoma v. Texas, 260 U.S. 606, 636, 43 S.Ct. 221, 226, 67 L.Ed. 428 (1923); see Oklahoma v. Texas, 261 U.S. 340, 341-342, 43 S.Ct. 376, 377, 67 L.Ed. 687 (1923).

In view of the foregoing, it is clear that the primary issue in this case is the location of the south (west) bank of the Red River in the disputed area.² In this connection, Plaintiffs contend that the south (west) bank in this area is the so-called "wheat field bank" which is a well-defined embankment immediately to the east of the presently cultivated lands of Defendants Langford on the Texas side of the river. Defendants Langford contend that the south (west) bank is along a well-defined bank immediately to the west of and adjacent to the present water course of the river. The area in dispute between the two lines encompasses approximately 900 acres.

Defendants Langford further contend that the lands between the two lines described above have been added to their lands by the processes of accretion and/or reliction. Plaintiffs assert that there has been no accretion by which the boundary has moved from the line described above, and if the course of the river has been altered, it has been the result of avulsion caused by embankments and bank stabilization jetties constructed in connection with the erection and protection of State Highway 79 bridge across the Red River near the north boundary of the lands involved herein. Furthermore, Plaintiffs claim that an avulsion occurred in the course of a major flood in 1908 causing the water course of the river to move suddenly eastward from the "wheat field bank" a distance of approximately one-half mile and that such an avulsive change in the water course did not change the south (west) boundary of the river as it then existed. Plaintiffs thus claim that the boundary remained along the "wheat field bank" where the river ran prior to the avulsive movement of the water course.

Defendants Langford deny the Plaintiffs' avulsion claims and assert that if there was an avulsion, Defendants Langford have occupied the lands in dispute and practiced husbandry and generally used the lands for the grazing of livestock for a sufficient period of time to have acquired the same by adverse possession pursuant to the applicable statutes in both Texas and Oklahoma.

Upon consideration of the pleadings, the oral and documentary evidence received at trial and the arguments, briefs and contentions of counsel, the Court makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law in this case which are incorporated herein pursuant to Rule 52, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure:

The portion of the Red River lying between Oklahoma and Texas flows in a generally eastward direction, slightly to the south, but the flow in the area of the disputed lands involved in this case is virtually north to south. The numerous aerial photographs and maps before the Court indicate that the present watercourse in the area generally follows a serpentine path between well-defined outer banks which range from one to two miles apart. The low water channel of the river meanders irregularly between the banks, frequently braiding into multiple streams and washing the outer banks at several points along the course of the river. The meander loops tend to move downstream through the process of erosion on the outer edges of the loops where the water flows faster than at the inner edges. Also, major fluctuations in the water level cause significant changes in the location of the channel over short periods of time. The Oklahoma bank of the Red River in the disputed area is a prominent bluff that rises vertically some forty feet or more. The present active channel of the river runs along this bank for most of the distance adjacent to the disputed lands. This channel bed consists of loose sand and is completely devoid of vegetation. It is bounded by low banks, cut into the sand bed of the river and ranging upward to approximately three to four feet high above the channel bed. In many areas, the channel has no discernible vertical banks and only a gradual slope as a boundary. The disputed lands extend westward from the channel to the wheat field bank nearly a mile to the west where the surface of the land rises sharply approximately ten feet. The wheat field bank is an erosion bank, formed by the cutting action of the river when the active channel ran along that bank, and this bank marks the eastern boundary of a cultivated wheat field comprised of land formed from deposits by river action in recent past geologic time, but which now possesses all of the characteristics of fast land. This field has been under constant cultivation for many years and is overflowed only in periods of extreme flooding. To the west of the wheat field is another prominent bank characterized by an outcropping of bedrock rising some twenty feet above the wheat field.

The State of Texas surveyed the lands on the west side of the Red River at this point in 1861, which survey extended to the wheat field bank and was the basis of a patent originally granted to one Reuben Brown. The present wheat field bank closely approximates the 1861 survey bank except that the present wheat field bank opposite the south half of Section 24 is west of the original survey line, resulting from erosion of the wheat field bank occurring since the 1861 survey. In 1874, the United States surveyed along the Oklahoma bank at which time the east bank of the Red River was to the west of its present location. The present active channel lies almost completely upon lands east of the Oklahoma bank according to the 1874 survey.

The uncontroverted evidence before the Court...