Jicarilla Apache Tribe v. Board of County Com'rs, County of Rio Arriba

• Decision Date: 28 September 1994
• Docket Number: No. 21476,21476
• Citation: 883 P.2d 136,118 N.M. 550,1994 NMSC 104
• Parties: JICARILLA APACHE TRIBE, Petitioner-Respondent, v. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS, COUNTY OF RIO ARRIBA, State of New Mexico, Respondent-Petitioner.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

Page 136

883 P.2d 136

118 N.M. 550

JICARILLA APACHE TRIBE, Petitioner-Respondent, v. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS, COUNTY OF RIO ARRIBA, State

of New Mexico, Respondent-Petitioner.

No. 21476.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

Sept. 28, 1994.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 19, 1994.

[118 N.M. 551] Dennis Luchetti, Espanola, for petitioner.

Nordhaus, Haltom, Taylor, Taradash & Frye, Wayne H. Bladh, Santa Fe, for respondent.

OPINION

MONTGOMERY, Chief Justice.

This case involves the subject of federal Indian law. We discuss the subject with some trepidation, given the considerable body of federal statutes and the vast array of sometimes confusing cases surrounding the subject. Nevertheless, the issue in the case, as the parties stressed at oral argument, is a quite narrow one; and its resolution directly affects a matter in which the appellate courts of this state are vitally interested--the jurisdiction of our trial courts to resolve disputes between or among citizens of the state and arising out of state-law principles affecting interests in real property located here.

The issue is whether a federal statute, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1360(b) (1988) (part of what is commonly known as Public Law 280¹ ), deprives a state court of subject-matter jurisdiction to adjudicate a dispute between an Indian tribe and one of the state's counties concerning the existence of a public road across part of a ranch purchased by the tribe in the recent past. The issue arose after the Jicarilla Apache Tribe (the Tribe) brought suit in the District Court of Rio Arriba County against the Rio Arriba County Board of County Commissioners (the County), to enjoin certain roadwork by the County on a claimed roadway. The County asserted that the roadway was a public road arising from prescriptive use by the public for a period of many years and that the Tribe took subject to the road when it acquired the ranch, which at that time was adjacent to--not a part of--its reservation. The Tribe and the County litigated the public-use question in district court, and the court ruled in the County's favor after a seven-day bench trial. The Tribe appealed to the New Mexico Court of Appeals on a number of grounds, including the ground--which was raised for the first time on appeal--that the district court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to resolve the parties' dispute. The Court of Appeals reversed the district court, holding that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate the existence of a claimed public road across the ranch. Jicarilla Apache Tribe v. Board of County Comm'rs, 116 N.M. 320, 329, 862 P.2d 428, 437 (Ct.App.), cert. granted, 117 N.M. 524, 873 P.2d 270 (1993). We granted the County's petition for a writ of certiorari to consider this jurisdictional question. We reverse the Court of Appeals' decision and hold that federal law did not preempt the district court's exercise of jurisdiction to resolve the parties' dispute.

I.

The Jicarilla Apache Tribe occupies a reservation in northern New Mexico. Established by Executive Order in 1887, the reservation encompasses over 740,000 acres, not including the ranch that is the subject of this dispute. The Tribe conducts significant commercial activities on the reservation, including a substantial amount of elk and deer hunting. In 1985 it decided to expand the area devoted to commercial hunting by purchasing a 55,000-acre ranch (the Theis Ranch) adjoining its reservation on the east.² The Theis Ranch lies entirely within Rio Arriba County and consists of largely uninhabited land that is now used primarily for some of the commercial hunting conducted by the Tribe.

In November 1987, after this suit was filed,³ the Tribe conveyed the property to the United States in trust for itself. The Secretary of the Interior accepted the conveyance in March 1988 and in September of that year formally added the property to the Jicarilla Apache Reservation.

In October 1987 a County road crew began blading a roadway across the Theis Ranch, starting at a point where its southerly boundary intersects State Road 95 and proceeding in a northerly direction toward the town of Monero, approximately eighteen miles to the northwest. Simultaneously, County employees began blading from the north across a 4,732-acre ranch owned by a neighbor, Natividad Chavez, lying to the north of the Theis Ranch.⁴

The Tribe and Chavez independently filed suit in the district court to enjoin the County from continuing to blade the roadway across their respective ranches. The suits were eventually consolidated. The County asserted that the area it wanted to blade was a preexisting road that had been used by the public since early in the nineteenth century and that it held a prescriptive easement over the road. The Tribe and Chavez challenged the extent of any such use and denied that any easement existed. The court received voluminous evidence describing the condition of the road, and demonstrating its prescriptive use, since at least the early part of this century. As the Court of Appeals said in its opinion below with reference to the portion of the road crossing the Chavez Ranch (but, according to the trial court's findings, with equal application to the portion crossing the Theis Ranch), "[the trial] testimony indicated that the road was used primarily for moving cattle and sheep, but that it also was used for hunting, wood gathering, driving horse-drawn wagons, horseback riding, and driving motor vehicles. It also indicated that the public used the road whenever necessary or convenient." 116 N.M. at 330, 862 P.2d at 438.

In addition, there was evidence of active County involvement in maintaining the road: County employees testified that they remembered working on the road as early as 1960 and as recently as 1985; a road maintenance schedule listed the road as "County Road 335"; and the County Commissioners discussed repairs to the road at meetings as far back as 1931. Other evidence included United States Geological Survey aerial photographs and National Forest maps showing the roadway--some describing it as a "good motor road"--and numerous other maps and deeds referring to the road throughout the present and the latter part of the last century. Currently, the segment of the road that traverses the Theis Ranch is bounded on both sides by fences that are 300 feet apart along some portions of the road.

After receiving all the evidence, the trial court made numerous detailed findings of fact, declaring that "the road in question has been used by the public to drive sheep, cattle, horses, and for pleasure, and has been used by horse-drawn wagons and motor vehicles since time immemorial"; that "the roadway in question has existed for many years, and at least since the 1820's, in its present location"; and that "the Plaintiffs and their predecessors in interest have had knowledge of the existence and use of the road in question."⁵ The court concluded that the road was a public road, the public having established a right of way by prescriptive use for the necessary period. Having so concluded, the court dismissed the Tribe's and Chavez's petitions with prejudice.

The Tribe and Chavez filed a joint appeal. The Court of Appeals affirmed with respect to Chavez's property, overruling her claims that the evidence was insufficient to establish a public road by prescription. Id. at 330-32, 862 P.2d at 438-40.⁶ The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court with respect to all determinations concerning the Tribe's property on the ground, raised for the first time on appeal, that the district court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to adjudicate interests in land held by an Indian tribe. Id. at 329, 862 P.2d at 437. Because it reversed the trial court on this ground, it did not consider the Tribe's other contentions on appeal. The County then filed its petition for a writ of certiorari, seeking our review of the jurisdictional issue.

II.

The Court of Appeals based its holding on the ground that part of Public Law 280 (28 U.S.C. Sec. 1360(b)) preempted state-court jurisdiction to determine whether a prescriptive easement existed across the Theis Ranch. 116 N.M. at 327-28, 862 P.2d at 435-36. Public Law 280 is a mandatory grant of civil and criminal jurisdiction to six states (Alaska, California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, and Wisconsin) over actions arising in Indian country.⁷ Section 1360(a) contains the grant of jurisdiction. Section 1360(b) provides in pertinent part:

Nothing in this section shall authorize the alienation, encumbrance, or taxation of any real or personal property ... belonging to any Indian or any Indian tribe, band, or community that is held in trust by the United States or is subject to a restriction against alienation imposed by the United States; ... or shall confer jurisdiction upon the State to adjudicate, in probate proceedings or otherwise, the ownership or right to possession of such property or any interest therein.

The Court of Appeals construed Sec. 1360(b) as preempting, by implication, state-court jurisdiction over properties subject to a restriction against alienation imposed by the United States. The Court said: "Although Section 1360(b) does not explicitly bar all states from exercising the described jurisdiction--it simply states that Section 1360(a) does not authorize that jurisdiction--the implication is clear. It makes no sense to deny the powers in Section 1360(b) only to those states granted broad civil jurisdiction by Section 1360(a)." 116 N.M. at 325, 862 P.2d at 433. The Court continued: "In short, Section 1360(b)'s jurisdictional bar does not apply only to states that have been granted, or have assumed, jurisdiction under Public Law 280." Id.

The language of Sec. 1360(b) referring to "property ... that is ... subject to a restriction against alienation imposed by the United States" suggests that a threshold requirement to the preemptive effect of Sec. 1360(b)--whatever it may be--is that the...