Klugh v. United States
| Decision Date | 06 September 1985 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 73-95. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of South Carolina |
| Parties | Margaret KLUGH, Katherine Klugh Maultsby, Mary Klugh Garner, John Bradley Klugh, William W. Bradley, III, Frederick H. Bradley, Patrick H. Bradley, Edna Bradley Troxell, Hugh W. Bradley, Mabel Bradley Payne, Mary Bradley Pressly, Thomas R. Bradley, William T. Bradley, Margaret Bradley Poole, David W. Bradley, John T. Bradley, Jr., Frances K. Bradley, Mark E. Bradley, Jr., Elizabeth Bradley McGarity, Robert F. Bradley, III, Thomas J. Bradley, Frances Wright Bradley, III, William R. Bradley, II, Rufus A. Johnson, III, Mary Bradley Brown, Margaret Bradley Shuford, Arthur L. Bradley, James B. Bradley, Curtis L. Bradley, David J. Wardlaw, Martha Wardlaw Buie, Foster Bradley Wardlaw, Jr., Ivey Jean Wardlaw Pressly, Robert S. Wardlaw, William W. Wardlaw, Mildred E. Wardlaw, John U. Wardlaw, Mary Wardlaw Deason, Annie Wardlaw Wright, Frances M. Wardlaw, John K. Bradley, Mary Bradley Miller, Martha Bradley Moody, Frances Trenholm Bradley, Jane H. Bradley, Martha B. Mayo, Robert F. Bradley, Jr., Eustace U. Bradley, Mary Bradley Cox, and Frances Thompson Sheppard, Plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES of America; Certain Lands Located in Abbeville, Greenwood and McCormick Counties, South Carolina, Being a Portion of the Estate of W.K. Bradley, Deceased; and the United States Department of Agriculture, Defendants. |
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Frank H. Clabaugh, Hilton Head Island, S.C., for plaintiffs.
Silvia Sepulveda-Hambor, Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., for defendants.
This matter is before the court upon cross motions for summary judgment. This court, after reviewing the entire record, including the briefs of counsel and applicable law, grants plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment to the extent indicated in this order.
The central issue in this case is whether the lineal descendants of W.K. Bradley, as devisees under Bradley's will, have a property interest in certain parcels of land, currently titled to the United States, that Bradley owned at his death. The lineal descendants who brought this action contend that they retain interests in the properties due to flaws in the procedure that the United States utilized in obtaining the land pursuant to the Weeks Act, 16 U.S.C.A. §§ 515, 517, 517a (West 1974). The plaintiffs argue that these irregularities, which occurred in three (3) judicial proceedings between 1936 and 1939, render the judgments that awarded title in these properties to the United States, void or voidable, as to the plaintiff's interests. The defects of which the plaintiffs complain include:1
In this suit against the United States, the plaintiffs seek return of title to the affected properties and an accounting for interim use.2
W.K. Bradley died on December 30, 1881. Under his will, dated December 8, 1881, Bradley devised his real property, including the parcels at issue in this case, to his wife and children "to be theirs and for their use and benefit for life, and after their death to go to their children and on down as far as the law will allow."
Between 1935 and 1937, the United States, acting through its Secretary of Agriculture, entered into several land option contracts with a number of adult Bradley heirs. While differing in form, each contract provided that the named vendors agreed to convey to the United States certain specified acreage if, within twelve (12) months of their entering into the option contract, the vendors were notified that the National Forest Reservation Commission had approved the purchase. The contracts further provided for the institution of condemnation proceedings if the vendors were unable to provide title satisfactory to the Attorney General of the United States. Acreage specified in four of these option contracts is also at issue in the case at bar.3
Pursuant to the Weeks Act, between 1936 and 1939, the United States condemned 7,913.5 acres of land in three separate judicial proceedings for a national forest. As foreshadowed in the previously mentioned contracts, the United States included the optioned lands in these condemnations. In the condemnation proceedings, the unborn Bradley heirs were not joined as parties, nor did the court appoint a guardian ad litem to protect their interests. The unknown Bradley heirs were joined and served by publication, but the court did not appoint a guardian ad litem to represent their interests. The minor and incompetent Bradley heirs were joined and served by publication, and the court appointed guardians ad litem to protect their interests.4 The known adult Bradley heirs were joined and did not object to the condemnations.
As previously noted, these condemnation proceedings culminated in judgments that awarded the United States title to the properties described therein. In 1973, the plaintiffs filed this action seeking to have the court set aside those condemnation judgments to the extent that the plaintiffs' interests in the properties were affected.
Of primary importance in this case was the interpretation of W.K. Bradley's will. Bradley devised his real property and mills to his wife and children "to be theirs and for their use and benefit for life, and after their death to go to their children and on down as far as the law will allow." The will indisputably devised a life estate to Bradley's wife and five children, but the disposition the testator intended by the phrase, "and after their death to go to their children and on down as far as the law will allow," raised serious and complex legal questions.
This court previously ruled that Bradley intended to devise life estates to successive lineal generations as a class, with the fee vesting in as many members of the next lineal class as was legally permissible under the rule against perpetuities. The court determined that the fee simple title vested twenty-one (21) years and nine (9) months after W.K. Bradley's death in his then living great grandchildren. With this interpretation of the will, the court traced through a submitted genealogical chart of the W.K. Bradley family and concluded that the statutorily required consent for the sale of the entire vested remainder interest had been obtained, since the remaindermen were properly served adults who allowed the condemnations to proceed to judgment without objection. For these reasons, the court earlier granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment in 1977. Klugh, et al. v. United States, No. 73-95 (D.S.C. February 2, 1977).
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with this court's conclusion that the testator intended to make a class gift. Klugh, et al. v. United States, 588 F.2d 45 (4th Cir.1978). Instead, the appeals court intepreted the testator's intent, as manifested in the will, to create successive life estates individually in his lineal heirs for as long as the rule against perpetuities might allow. This interpretation placed the vesting of the fee twenty-one (21) years and nine (9) months after the death of the survivor of the children and grandchildren who were living at the testator's death. The appeals court determined that under the facts of the case at bar, "the fee to the testator's lands will not vest until January 21, 1988, and possibly as much as nine months later." 5Id. at 51. Accordingly, the judgment of this court was reversed, and the case was remanded for further proceedings in accordance with the appeals court opinion. The action, on remand, is currently before this court on cross-motions for summary judgment.
The parties agree that the United States acquired the subject properties pursuant to the Weeks Act, 16 U.S.C.A. § 516 (West 1974). That statute provides, in part, that:
the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to purchase, in the name of the United States, such lands as have been approved for purchase by the National Forest Reservation Commission at the price or prices fixed by said commission. No deed or other instrument of conveyance shall be accepted or approved by the Secretary of Agriculture under this section until the legislature of the State in which the land lies shall have consented to the acquisition of such land by the United States for the purpose of preserving the navigability of navigable streams.
Id.6 Similarly, both sides concur that the Legislature of South Carolina conditionally consented to the acquisitions through the enactment of S.C.Code Ann. § 3-1-410 (Law.Co-op.1977).7 That statute provides, in part, that:
the consent of the State is hereby given to the acquisition by the United States, by purchase, gift or condemnation according to law, of such forest lands or such other property as it may acquire by purchase, deed or otherwise in this State as, in the opinion of the Federal Government, may be needed for the establishment of a national forest service in that region; provided, that unless the consent of the owner of such land is had and obtained, nothing herein contained shall be construed as giving the right to condemn any building, dwelling house or cultivated or pasture land.
Id. In sum, the United States was authorized to purchase property that encompassed a building, dwelling house, or cultivated or pasture land only if the owner of such property consented to the sale. The parties have stipulated, for purposes of these cross motions for summary judgment, that at least one acre of condemned Bradley land encompassed a building, dwelling house or cultivated or pasture land at the...
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