State of Texas v. Chuoke, 11295.

• Decision Date: 15 April 1946
• Docket Number: No. 11295.,11295.
• Citation: 154 F.2d 1
• Parties: STATE OF TEXAS v. CHUOKE et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

154 F.2d 1 (1946)

STATE OF TEXAS v. CHUOKE et al.

No. 11295.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

March 6, 1946.

Rehearing Denied April 15, 1946.

Grover Sellers, Atty. Gen. of Texas, W. T. Curry, Jack W. Rowland and Wm. J. Fanning, Assts. to Atty. Gen. of Texas, and H. E. Kleinecke, Jr., Jas. W. Wayman, and Daniel J. Wilson, all of Galveston, Tex., and Scott W. Key, Sp. Asst. to U. S. Atty., of Houston, Tex., for appellees.

Before SIBLEY, HOLMES, and McCORD, Circuit Judges.

SIBLEY, Circuit Judge.

This appeal is from a judgment of the District Court made in connection with a condemnation proceeding brought by the United States to acquire certain lands on Galveston Island, Texas, by which judgment the claim of the State of Texas of title to a portion of said land was denied and it was adjudged that the State was not entitled to any part of the funds deposited in the registry of the court as just compensation for the taking, except for taxes. The record here is a certificate prepared under Rule of Civil Procedure 76, 28 U.S. C.A. following section 723c, and it does not contain any of the pleadings. The judgment itself, however, recites that it is rendered on an answer of the appellees claiming title to the lots described in the judgment, "and upon the answer and intervention of the State of Texas claiming title to all of those portions of the said numbered tracts and lots lying within and submerged by the tidewaters of inlets, arms and portions of the Gulf of Mexico." In the opinion filed it is further stated "The land has already been taken by the Government and the amount of compensation that the landowners shall receive for such tracts has either been found or agreed upon," and that the only matter presented for decision is the ownership of the submerged lands.

A motion to dismiss the appeal because the judgment is not final, 28 U.S. C.A. § 225, has been made; and though it is not pressed, it is our duty to see that we have jurisdiction of the appeal in this respect. Collins v. Miller, 252 U.S. 364, 40 S.Ct. 347, 64 L.Ed. 616. While the status of the condemnation proceeding as a whole does not precisely appear, enough appears to assure us of our jurisdiction. We recently held in Dade County v. United States, 5 Cir., 142 F.2d 230, that certain orders in such a condemnation proceeding were not final. The issue there was as to the right of the United States to condemn certain public property, and was between condemnor and condemnee; and the orders were interlocutory in their relation to the whole proceeding. Here the judgment does not affect the United States, or its right to condemn any property, or what shall be paid as compensation. The United States has the property, and the compensation has been fixed and the money is in the registry of the court. The questions remaining are only as to the distribution of the fund. Because the court has the money, it must adjudicate the ownership of it, just as a federal court administering a receivership has jurisdiction and a duty to adjudicate the controversies of claimants to money or property in the hands of the court by its receiver, irrespective of its jurisdiction over them if presented in original suits. The duty to adjudicate to whom the constitutional just compensation shall be paid, as well as the amount of it, comes from the federal law and there can be no question of federal jurisdiction, but the controversy may be, as here, outside the current of the main case so as to be separately tried. It is true that the Rules of Federal Procedure do not control condemnation cases, except as to appeals, Rule 81(a) (7); so that their provisions for separate trial of distinct claims, resulting in proper separate appeals, Reeves v. Beardall, Ex'r., 316 U.S. 283, 62 S.Ct. 1085, 86 L.Ed. 1478, do not directly apply; but they point the way to a convenient handling of cases like this in the trial court. And this handling is directly justified by the old practice when a court had a fund to distribute. Here it appears that the State of Texas made a pleading described as an "answer and intervention"; and a judgment on an intervention which finally settles the separate claim of the intervenor is usually appealable. The conflicting claims as to these submerged lands, and to the money awarded for them, is also in the nature of an interpleader, in which neither the United States nor the owners of other lands have any interest. There is no practical reason for saying that an appeal from the judgment on this interpleader, finally settling the rights of the parties to it, must await the conclusion of all other controversies which may arise out of the condemnation. We sustain the appeal.

On the merits we are called on to adjudicate a delicate question of Texas law between the State and its own citizens. That question has several times been raised in the Texas courts respecting tidewater lands on Galveston Island, but not with conclusive results. The State was not a party to any such case, and is not bound on any principle of res judicata; and the cases stand here only as authority touching the Texas law. The stipulation of facts on which the present judgment was rendered contains the statement: "The value of the bed or bottom of Sydnor's...