U.S. v. Club

• Decision Date: 11 January 2011
• Docket Number: Nos. 09–5363,09–5369.,s. 09–5363
• Citation: 630 F.3d 1039
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellantv.OLD DOMINION BOAT CLUB, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

630 F.3d 1039

394 U.S.App.D.C. 92

UNITED STATES of America, Appellant

v.OLD DOMINION BOAT CLUB, Appellee.

Nos. 09–5363

09–5369.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued Oct. 20, 2010.Decided Jan. 11, 2011.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Nos. 1:73–cv–01903 & 1:73–cv–02211).Kathryn E. Kovacs, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellant. With her on the briefs was Michael T. Gray, Attorney. David C. Shilton, Attorney, entered an appearance.Hugh Nugent argued the cause for appellee Old Dominion Boat Club. With him on the brief were Paul J. Kiernan and Harry P. Hart.Before: TATEL, GARLAND, and KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judges.Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.TATEL, Circuit Judge:

Through this action to quiet title to certain “filled,” i.e., reclaimed, lands lying on the bed of the Potomac River, the United States seeks to secure public access to the Alexandria, Virginia, waterfront. Defendant, the Old Dominion Boat Club, is an Alexandria private social club the bulk of whose property lies on that filled land. The district court held that despite the United States' ownership of the riverbed, Old Dominion had not trespassed nor was it obligated to provide public access because, as a riparian owner abutting District of Columbia waters, it had the right to lay fill and build wharves. Since binding circuit precedent recognizes just such a right, we affirm.

I.

In 1632, King Charles I granted a charter for Maryland to Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore. That grant included the bed of the Potomac River, thus establishing the boundary line between Maryland and Virginia at the Virginia shore. See Morris v. United States, 174 U.S. 196, 223, 225, 19 S.Ct. 649, 43 L.Ed. 946 (1899). A century and a half later, in 1791, Maryland, having succeeded to title from Lord Baltimore following the Revolutionary War, ceded a portion of its territory, including a piece of the riverbed, to the United States for formation of a seat of government pursuant to Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution. Id. at 230. Although Virginia also ceded territory on its side of the river, including Alexandria, the 1791 high-water mark became the District's border and marked the edge of the federally owned riverbed when the United States retroceded Alexandria to Virginia in 1846. Act of July 9, 1846, § 1, 9 Stat. 35, 35–36. In 1945, Congress moved the boundary to the then-existing high-water mark but clarified that “[n]othing in this Act shall be construed as relinquishing any right, title, or interest of the United States to the lands lying between the mean high-water mark as it existed January 24, 1791, and the boundary line as [now established].” See Act of Oct. 31, 1945, Pub.L. No. 79–208, §§ 101, 103, 59 Stat. 552, 552.

Early in the twentieth century, Old Dominion, formed as a private social club in 1880, purchased two adjacent parcels on the Alexandria waterfront. Both parcels occupy reclaimed lands filled after 1791. Old Dominion operates a private clubhouse and marina on one of the parcels and a private parking lot on the other. Both are fenced.

In 1973, the United States commenced this action against thirty-four Alexandria riparian owners pursuant to two statutes that authorize the Attorney General to bring quiet title actions against parcels of dry or submerged land in the District of Columbia. Act of April 27, 1912, Pub.L. No. 62–138 § 1, 37 Stat. 93; Pub.L. No. 79–208 § 103. Claiming ownership of all filled and submerged lands on the District of Columbia side of the 1791 high-water mark, the government argued that those riparian owners, including Old Dominion and its predecessors in interest, had no right to fill the land at issue. Praying for neither trespass damages nor ejection, the government seeks only to establish public access to the Alexandria waterfront, or, at the very least, a public view of the waterfront. See Recording of Oral Arg. at 28:35–28:55 (describing that if “you're walking down” toward the water by Old Dominion's parcel “you can't see anything because on one side there's a privacy fence and on the other side there is a parking lot with a chain link fence”). Most of the thirty-four defendants settled, agreeing to some degree of public access. Old Dominion and three other defendants, owning a total of seven parcels, have continued to defend the lawsuit.

Old Dominion filed a motion for summary judgment, which the district court granted. United States v. Robertson Terminal Warehouse, Inc., 575 F.Supp.2d 210, 213 (D.D.C.2008). The district court began its analysis with a threshold question: who owns the riverbed beneath Old Dominion's filled parcels? The court concluded that the United States holds “fee title” to the bed of the Potomac River to the 1791 high-water mark, including Old Dominion's parcels. The United States' “fee title” is “subject to a public trust for navigation and fishery, and the United States cannot use or dispose of the bed of the Potomac River in such a way that would interfere with this trust.” Id. at 216. The district court also held that Old Dominion had never gained title to the filled riverbed via the doctrine of accretion, which “refers to the increase of riparian land by the gradual deposit, by water, of solid material ... so as to cause that to become dry land which was before covered by water.” Id. at 219 (explaining that accretion “does not refer to the purposeful addition of land to waterfront property through laying fill and construction of wharves”).

The district court next considered whether Old Dominion and its predecessors in interest, as riparian owners, had the right to lay fill and build wharves. Reviewing applicable law, the district court held that Old Dominion had such a right, meaning that its fill and wharves were non-trespassory and that it had exclusive possessory rights to both. Robertson Terminal Warehouse, Inc., 575 F.Supp.2d at 219–29. According to the district court, this conclusion was driven by three decisions of this court, United States v. Belt, 142 F.2d 761 (D.C.Cir.1944), United States v. Martin, 177 F.2d 733 (D.C.Cir.1949), and Martin v. Standard Oil Co. of N.J., 198 F.2d 523 (D.C.Cir.1952).

The United States now appeals, arguing, among other things, that Belt, Martin, and Standard Oil are not binding. Our review is de novo. Hendricks v. Geithner, 568 F.3d 1008, 1011–12 (D.C.Cir.2009) (“We review a district court's granting of summary judgment de novo.”).

II.

Although neither party challenges the district court's choice of law—Maryland law of 1801—we begin by explaining why that choice was correct. This case concerns Old Dominion's riparian rights, and the scope of such rights is determined by the law of the sovereign having authority over the body of navigable water in question. See Weems Steamboat Co. of Baltimore v. People's Steamboat Co., 214 U.S. 345, 355, 29 S.Ct. 661, 53 L.Ed. 1024 (1909) ( “The rights of a riparian owner upon a navigable stream in this country are governed by the law of the state in which the stream is situated.”); Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 1, 26, 36–37, 14 S.Ct. 548, 38 L.Ed. 331 (1894) (same). Here the sovereign is the United States. See Morris, 174 U.S. at 230, 19 S.Ct. 649. When Congress accepted the given territories, however, it declared that Maryland law would continue to govern in the territories ceded by Maryland, Act of July 16, 1790, Ch. 28, § 1, 1 Stat. 130, 130, and then later when it created a judicial system for the District of Columbia in 1801, it provided that the laws of Maryland “as they now exist [ ] shall be and continue in force in that part of the said district, which was ceded by that state to the United States,” Act of Feb. 27, 1801, Ch. 15, § 1, 2 Stat. 103, 103–05. Thus, despite the fact that the plaintiff is the United States, the defendant is a private club in Virginia, and the year is 2011, the district court correctly held that “[r]iparian rights within the District of Columbia are governed by Maryland law as it existed in 1801.” Robertson Terminal Warehouse, Inc., 575 F.Supp.2d at 221 (relying on Morris, 174 U.S. at 225–30, 19 S.Ct. 649).

As noted above, in concluding that Old Dominion had the right to lay fill and build wharves, the district court relied on Belt, Martin, and Standard Oil (throughout this opinion we shall refer to these cases as the “ Belt trio”). In each of those cases, we faced actions similar to the one we consider today, and in each we determined that Maryland recognized just such a right. Specifically, in Belt we noted in dicta that the rights of riparian owners include the right to “access ... the navigable part of the [r]iver, with the right to make a landing, wharf, or pier, subject to such general rules and regulations as the State may think proper for the protection of the public.” 142 F.2d at 767. In reaching this conclusion, we relied on the Maryland Court of Appeals decision in Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co. v. Chase, in which that court described riparian rights as follows:

[I]n addition to [the] right by reliction or accretion, the riparian proprietor, whose land is bounded by a navigable river, whether his title extends beyond the dry land or not, has the right of access to the navigable part of the river from the front of his lot, and the right to make a landing, wharf or pier for his own use, or for the use of the public, subject to such general rules and regulations as the Legislature may think proper to prescribe for the protection of the rights of the public, whatever those rights may be.

43 Md. 23, 35 (1875). Citing Belt, we expressly held in Martin that “[a]n owner of riparian land ... has a qualified right to make fills and build wharves in the river.” 177 F.2d at 734 (internal quotation marks omitted). We reached the same conclusion in Standard Oil, relying on both Belt and Chase. 198 F.2d at 526.

Because these holdings...