United States v. Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma

• Citation: 94 L.Ed.2d 704,480 U.S. 700,107 S.Ct. 1487
• Decision Date: 31 March 1987
• Docket Number: No. 85-1940,85-1940
• Parties: UNITED STATES, Petitioner v. CHEROKEE NATION OF OKLAHOMA
• Court: United States Supreme Court

480 U.S. 700

107 S.Ct. 1487

94 L.Ed.2d 704

UNITED STATES, Petitioner

v CHEROKEE NATION OF OKLAHOMA.

No. 85-1940.

Argued Feb. 23, 1987.

Decided March 31, 1987.

Syllabus

Choctaw Nation v. Oklahoma, 397 U.S. 620, 90 S.Ct. 1328, 25 L.Ed.2d 615 (1970), held that, under pertinent treaties with the Federal Government, certain Indian Tribes, including respondent Tribe, were granted title to the riverbed underlying portions of the Arkansas River in Oklahoma. The Government's construction of a navigable channel in the river damaged respondent's riverbed mineral interests. After unsuccessfully seeking compensation from the Government, respondent filed suit in Federal District Court, contending that the channel project resulted in a taking under the Fifth Amendment of respondent's riverbed interests without just compensation. Granting summary judgment for respondent, the court rejected, on the basis of Choctaw Nation, the Government's defense that its navigational servitude under the Commerce Clause precluded liability for the alleged taking, and held that under the relevant treaties the Government had not reserved its navigational servitude. The Court of Appeals affirmed, adopting a different analysis. It found that the Government retained a navigational servitude in the river, but that—balancing the public and private interests involved—the servitude was insufficient to protect the Government from liability to compensate respondent.

Held: No "balancing" test, as formulated by the Court of Appeals, is required where, as here, the interference with instream interests results from an exercise of the Government's Commerce Clause power to regulate navigational uses of waters. The proper exercise of the Government's navigational servitude is not an invasion of any private property rights in the stream or the lands underlying it, for the damage sustained does not result from taking property from riparian owners within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment but from the lawful exercise of a power to which the riparian owners' interests are subject. Contrary to respondent's contention, the decision in Choctaw Nation does not support the conclusion that respondent's title to the riverbed is unique in scope, or that under the pertinent treaties the Government abandoned its navigational servitude in the area. Moreover, the Government's fiduciary obligations in dealing with Indian tribal property do not elevate the Government's actions into a taking. The tribal interests here simply do not include the right to be free from the Government's navigational servitude. Pp. 703-708.

782 F.2d 871 (CA 10 1986), reversed and remanded.

REHNQUIST, C.J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

Jeffrey P. Minear, for petitioner.

James Wilcoxen, Muskogee, Okl., for respondent.

Chief Justice REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.

In Choctaw Nation v. Oklahoma, 397 U.S. 620, 90 S.Ct. 1328, 25 L.Ed.2d 615 (1970), the Court determined that certain treaties between the Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw Tribes and the United States granted to the Tribes fee simple title to the riverbed underlying specified portions of the Arkansas River in Oklahoma. The Court found the circumstances sufficient to overcome the "strong presumption against conveyance by the United States" of title to the bed of a navigable water. Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544, 552, 101 S.Ct. 1245, 1251-1252, 67 L.Ed.2d 493 (1981). See United States v. Holt State Bank, 270 U.S. 49, 46 S.Ct. 197, 70 L.Ed. 465 (1926). The question presented in this case is whether the United States must pay the Cherokee Nation compensation for damage to these riverbed interests caused by navigational improvements which it has made on the Arkansas River. The damage to sand and gravel deposits resulted from the McClellan-Kerr Project, approved by Congress in 1946, Act of July 24, 1946, ch. 595, 60 Stat. 634, 635-636, and designed to improve navigation by construction of a channel in the Arkansas River from its mouth at the Mississippi to Catoosa, Oklahoma. The project was completed in 1971.

After our decision in Choctaw Nation, the Cherokee Nation sought compensation from the Government. Congress refused to fund the claim after the Department of the Inte- rior and the Army Corps of Engineers concluded that the United States' navigational servitude rendered it meritless. See Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations for 1980: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, 96th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 7, pp. 379-392 (1979). Congress did, however, provide respondent with the opportunity to seek judicial relief, conferring jurisdiction on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma to determine "any claim which the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma may have against the United States for any and all damages to Cherokee tribal assets related to and arising from the construction of the [McClellan-Kerr Project]." H.R. 2329, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. (1981).

The Cherokee Nation filed a complaint contending that the construction of the McClellan-Kerr Project resulted in a taking under the Fifth Amendment of the Tribe's riverbed interests without just compensation. The United States in response claimed that its navigational servitude precluded liability for the alleged taking. The District Court granted the Tribe's motion for summary judgment, finding that the decision in Choctaw Nation created a "unique situation by which a portion of the navigable Arkansas River is, essentially, a private waterway belonging exclusively to the Cherokee Nation." App. to Pet. for Cert. 26a. Because the United States did not reserve its navigational servitude in the relevant treaties, the court held, it owed the Tribe just compensation. Id., at 27a.¹

A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed, adopting a different analysis. 782 F.2d 871 (1986). The court rejected the District Court's conclusion that the United States' failure to reserve its navigational servitude defeated that interest. It found it "certain [that] the United States retained a navigational servitude in the Arkansas River." Id., at 876. Nevertheless, the court held that the servitude was insufficient to protect the United States from liability. Finding that "the assertion of a navigational servitude on particular waters acknowledges only that the property owner's right to use these waters is shared with the public at large," id., at 877, the court believed that the effect of the navigational servitude varied with the owner's intended use: "When the exercise of that public power affects private ownership rights not connected to a navigational use, the court must balance the public and private interests to decide whether just compensation is due." Ibid. Applying this test, the court concluded that though the Cherokee Nation could not interfere with the United States' exercise of the navigational servitude, it had a right to compensation for any consequent loss of property or diminution in value.²

We think the Court of Appeals erred in formulating a balancing test to evaluate this assertion of the navigational servitude. No such "balancing" is required where, as here, the interference with in-stream interests results from an exercise of the Government's power to regulate navigational uses of "the deep streams which penetrate our country in every direction." Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 195, 6 L.Ed. 23 (1824). Though "this Court has never held that the navigational servitude creates a blanket exception to the Takings Clause whenever Congress exercises its Commerce Clause authority to promote navigation," Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U.S. 164, 172, 100 S.Ct. 383, 389, 62 L.Ed.2d 332 (1979), there can be no doubt that "[t]he Commerce Clause confers a unique position upon the Government in connection with navigable waters." United States v. Rands, 389 U.S. 121, 122, 88 S.Ct. 265, 266, 19 L.Ed.2d 329 (1967). It gives to the Federal Government "a 'dominant servitude,' FPC v. Niagara Mohawk Power Corp., 347 U.S. 239, 249, 74 S.Ct. 487, 493, 98 L.Ed. 666 (1954), which extends to the entire stream and the stream bed below ordinary highwater mark. The proper exercise of this power is not an invasion of any private property rights in the stream or the lands underlying it, for the damage sustained does not result from taking property from riparian owners within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment but from the lawful exercise of a power to which the interests of riparian owners have always been subject." Rands, supra, at 123, 88 S.Ct., at 267.³ See also United States v. Kansas City Life Ins. Co., 339 U.S. 799, 808, 70 S.Ct. 885, 890, 94 L.Ed. 1277 (1950); Scranton v. Wheeler, 179 U.S. 141, 163, 21 S.Ct. 48, 57, 45 L.Ed. 126 (1900).

The application of these principles to interference with streambed interests has not depended on balancing this valid public purpose in light of the intended use of those interests by the owner. Thus, in Lewis Blue Point Oyster Cultivation Co. v. Briggs, 229 U.S. 82, 33 S.Ct. 679, 57 L.Ed. 1083 (1913), the Court held that no taking occurred where dredging carried out under the direction of the United States destroyed oysters that had been culti- vated on privately held lands under the waters of the Great South Bay in New York. The decision rested on the view that the dominant right of navigation "must include the right to use the bed of the water for every purpose which is in aid of navigation." Id., at 87, 33 S.Ct., at 680. The Court did not rely on the particular use to which the private owners put the bed, but rather observed that their very title to the submerged lands "is acquired and held subject to the power of Congress to deepen the water over such lands or to use them for any structure which the interest of navigation, in its judgment, may require." Id., at 88, 33 S.Ct., at 680-681. See also United States v. Commodore Park, ...