United States v. Belt, 8601.

• Decision Date: 15 May 1944
• Docket Number: No. 8601.,8601.
• Citation: 142 F.2d 761,79 US App. DC 87
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. BELT et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

79 US App. DC 87, 142 F.2d 761 (1944)

UNITED STATES v. BELT et al.

No. 8601.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia.

Argued April 4, 1944.

Decided May 15, 1944.

Mr. Norman MacDonald, of Washington, D. C., with whom Messrs. Norman M. Littell, Assistant Attorney General, and Alex H. Bell, Jr., all of the Department of Justice, of Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for appellant.

Mr. Walter M. Bastian, of Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Milton D. Campbell, of Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellees.

Before GRONER, Chief Justice, and MILLER and EDGERTON, Associate Justices.

GRONER, C. J.

This is an appeal from a final judgment in a suit brought by the United States to quiet title to certain lots of land bordering the Anacostia River in the District of Columbia. The complaint prays that the court decree the absolute and paramount title of the United States to the land and land under water embraced in Square 666, and remove therefrom any cloud cast thereon by the claims of the defendants (appellees).

The District Court held that the United States had no right, title or interest in any of the lands included in Square 666 and dismissed the complaint.

The case arises out of circumstances attending the establishment of Washington City as the Capital of the United States. These circumstances are graphically described in the opinion of the Supreme Court in Morris v. United States, 174 U.S. 196, 19 S.Ct. 649, 43 L.Ed. 946; and reference to what is said there will avoid the necessity of restatement here. The complaint sets out that the City was laid out in accordance with plans which provided for a certain public street (called Water Street), as a binding external and marginal boundary along the courses of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers, and that title to the land forming the street and that lying between the street and the mesne high water line of the rivers then and there became and is now vested in the United States in fee simple.

Unquestionably, the complaint was drawn to bring the case within the doctrine of the Morris case. There property owners, claiming riparian rights in the Potomac River frontage, were the owners of lots overlooking the River, but located on the shoreward side of Water Street, the street and the unplatted land along the river front being on the water side of their lots and separating them from the high water line of the River. The question in the case was whether, notwithstanding these physical facts, they were entitled to prolong the side lines of their lots over and across the street and into the water. The decision was that the platting and laying out of the street between the lots and the River disclosed the obvious purpose of the founders of the City to reserve the river front and access to the navigable water to the use and benefit of all the citizens of the new City.

Appellees in the present suit are the owners of the land now known as Square 666, which at the time the City of Washington was laid out was within the Town of Carrollsburg. The lots embraced in this block, as then laid out, faced on a street of Carrollsburg called Union Street, and extended back therefrom eastwardly to the Anacostia River. In consequence of this, it is claimed, and not denied, that the then owners were vested with all the rights of proprietors of land along a navigable water course. These owners, the record shows, were unwilling to convey their lands to the United States on the same terms and conditions as had previously been agreed to between Commissioners acting for the United States and other owners of the lands to be included in the boundaries of the City, but insisted upon and obtained agreement, in consideration of the dedication of their property to the uses of the proposed City, that one-half the quantity of land conveyed by them to the United States should, on the completion and adoption of the plan of the City, be reassigned and reconveyed as near their old locations as was practicable. Accordingly, the Commissioners replatted a part of the Carrollsburg lots into Squares 665 and 666 and reconveyed to each former owner one lot in Square 665 and one lot in Square 666 of thirty-foot frontage, for each of the Carrollsburg lots of sixty-foot frontage, — the depth of the new lots being approximately one-half the depth of the old — and this division of lots and the location of each in the respective squares were then shown on the plat of the City, known as the Dermott Plat, officially approved and ratified by the President, in accordance with appropriate provisions of the applicable Act of Congress.

There is actually no dispute between the parties here that the lots embraced in this litigation are shown by metes and bounds on the Dermott Plat, as included within the area of Block 666, and equally no dispute that Block 666 is shown as lying on the eastern or water side of Water Street, and the lots therein as extending thence eastwardly from the street into the River; and there is no dispute that the lots in question were in 1793 assigned by the Commissioners appointed for that purpose to appellees' predecessors in title in fee simple.

The position of the United States here is that, notwithstanding this, the Commissioners, in making conveyances of the lots, either dealt with land altogether lying and being below the high water mark of the River, — i. e., not fast land — or to the extent, if any, that there was fast land, granted merely a water privilege or revocable license for wharfing or other use of the water, "and that said license or permission, if any, was and remained servient to and subject to the exercise of rights under its sovereign and paramount title by the United States."

The case was heard below by District Judge Laws, who wrote an opinion (47 F. Supp. 239) and made findings of fact and conclusions of law, in part, as follows:

"1. In March 1793, defendants' predecessors in title were the owners of certain lots in the town of Carrollsburg, bounded on the Eastern Branch or Anacostia River within the limits of the City of Washington, a part of which lots were included in Square numbered 666 by the Commissioners appointed for laying out the Federal City.

"2. That the original proprietors of said lots had refused to convey the same to the trustees appointed to receive deeds in trust of the lands embraced within the City of Washington when such deeds of trust were executed by original proprietors of lands within said limits in March 1791, but thereafter in March 1793 did execute deeds in trust to said trustees containing the following provision in lieu of that appearing in the conveyances theretofore executed:

"`To have and to hold the hereby bargained and sold lots, pieces, and parcels of ground with their appurtenances, * * * To and for the special trusts following and no other, say, that all the said lots, pieces, and parcels of ground hereby bargained and sold, be laid out together with the other lands and designated for that purpose, for a Federal City, with such streets, squares, parcels, and lots as the President of the United States, for the time being, hath approved or shall approve; * * *. And that one-half the quantity of the said lots, pieces and parcels, hereby bargained, and sold, shall be assigned and conveyed as near the old situations, as may be to him the said Charles Carroll of Carrollton, his heirs, and assigns, in fee simple, so that he shall have made up to him one-half of his former quantity and in as good a situation; * * *.'

"3. That in part consideration thereof said Commissioners, pursuant to the provisions of said deeds in trust, allotted and conveyed to defendants' predecessors in title all of the lots in Square 666 except lots 2, 6, 7, 8 and 10 in said Square, which last enumerated lots were on September 16, 1793, ordered by the President of the United States to be sold by the Commissioners, and were thereafter sold by said Commissioners and deeds conveying the same executed and delivered to purchasers, whose title so obtained has also devolved upon the defendants.

"4. The Court finds that at the time of the laying out of said Square 666 by the Commissioners, the division of the same, and the conveyances of the lots therein to defendants' predecessors in title, said Square consisted of fast land bounded by Water Street on the west and the waters of said Eastern Branch or Anacostia River on the east.

"5. That is (it) was the intention of the United States Commissioners, upon the division and assignment of the several lots in Square 666, to grant to the owners of the lots in Carrollsburg for which the lots in Square 666 were substituted in exchange an estate in fee simple, and not, as plaintiff contends, their intention to grant merely a revocable water privilege or license to wharf out to the channel in connection with the same proprietors' ownership of the lots in Square 665.

"6. The Court further finds that in the laying out of that part of the City of Washington which is bounded by the Eastern Branch, the dividing of the same into squares and lots and in making division of such lots adjacent to the said Eastern Branch with the original proprietors, and in the sale of the public lots remaining after such division, a general plan of bounding the city on that front by a street separating privately owned property from the waters of the Eastern Branch was not adopted or followed."

"Conclusions of Law

"1. That the defendant, Rigel O. Belt, is the present owner in fee simple of all of the Square 666 subject only to the liens of the several deeds of trust described in the complaint.

"2. That the certificates issued and conveyances made by the Commissioners for laying out the Federal City, under the direction of the President, vested in the original proprietors of the said lots in Square 666 other than lots 2, 6, 7, 8 and 10, and the subsequent sales of the last mentioned lots vested in the purchasers at said...