United States v. Gossett

• Decision Date: 05 December 1967
• Docket Number: No. 64-1758,65-812.,64-1758
• Citation: 277 F. Supp. 11
• Court: U.S. District Court — Central District of California
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Claude S. GOSSETT and Katherine May Gossett, Defendants. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Charles D. WILLIAMS et al., Defendants.

277 F. Supp. 11

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Claude S. GOSSETT and Katherine May Gossett, Defendants.

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Charles D. WILLIAMS et al., Defendants.

Nos. 64-1758, 65-812.

United States District Court C. D. California.

December 5, 1967.

Manuel L. Real, U. S. Atty., Thomas H. Coleman, Asst. U. S. Atty., Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiff.

Robert A. Stafford, Clarement, Cal., Schuman, Novak & Cooper, Beverly Hills, Cal., for defendants.

COURT'S ORDER—PURSUANT TO PRETRIAL

WESTOVER, District Judge.

The above cases are representative of a number of actions filed by the Government against alleged trespassers who have located on land adjacent to the lower Colorado River.¹ Treating defendants as trespassers, plaintiff has brought actions in ejectment to recover possession of lands owned by the United States of America and for damages for unlawful use thereof. Defendants in each case allege that the property occupied by them does not belong to the United States but is in truth and reality property owned by the State of California.

Defendants in these actions are (as are the defendants in the related cases) trespassers—either upon land owned by the United States of America or upon land belonging to the State of California, to which land defendants assert no title.

Subsequent to the war between Mexico and the United States the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, by which Mexico ceded to the United States all of the vast territory north of the Rio Grande and Gila Rivers and all of Alta California. By the treaty, the United States of America became owner of all public lands embraced within such ceded territory, including the lands adjacent to and under the Colorado River.

As, upon colonization, America had adopted as its basic law the common law of England, it followed that when western territories were formed into states and admitted into the Union, each state (by reason of the common law and the policy adopted by the federal government) became owner of the land under its navigable streams to the usual high water mark. Pollard v. Hagan, 3 How. 212, 44 U.S. 212, 11 L.Ed. 565.

Designation of the usual high water mark was confirmed in the "Submerged Lands Act of 1953", 67 U.S. Statutes at Large 29, which Act defined "lands beneath navigable waters" as

"(1) all lands within the boundaries of each of the respective States which are covered by nontidal waters that were navigable under the laws of the United States at the time such State became a member of the Union, or acquired sovereignty over such lands and waters thereafter, up to the ordinary high water mark as heretofore or hereafter modified by accretion, erosion, and reliction; * * *"

California's Constitution of 1849, describing the boundaries of the southern part of the state, is as follows:

"* * *; thence running in a straight line in a south-easterly direction to the River Colorado, at a point where it intersects the 35th degree of north latitude; thence down the middle of the channel of said river, to the boundary line between the United States and Mexico, as established by the treaty of May 30th, 1848; * * *." Constitution of 1849, Article XII.

On September 9, 1850 California was admitted into the Union

"* * * on an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever." (9 U.S. Statutes at Large 452.)

Pursuant to the rule, title to lands under navigable waters vested in the State of California, as such title to the respective lands beneath its navigable waters had vested in each state as admitted into the Union. United States v. California, 332 U.S. 19 at 42, 67 S.Ct. 1658, 91 L.Ed. 1889. And by Section 3 of 9 Stat., supra, the public lands within the borders of California were reserved for disposition by the United States.

In 1872 the California Legislature passed an Act which, signed by the Governor, became law—Civil Code § 830. It provides as follows:

"Except where the grant under which the land is held indicates a different intent, the owner of the upland * * * when it borders upon a navigable lake or stream, where there is no tide, * * * takes to the edge of the lake or stream, at low-water mark; * * *."

A basic problem in these ejectment cases is to determine whether the United States of America is the owner of the upland to the ordinary high- or low-water mark.

Court decisions indicate that although lands under navigable waters to the ordinary high-water mark were transferred to each state upon admission into the Union (United States v. State of Oregon, 295 U.S. 1, 55 S.Ct. 610, 79 L.Ed. 1267), nevertheless, each state had the right to limit the extent of lands which it would receive.

In Hardin v. Shedd, 190 U.S. 508, page 519, 23 S.Ct. 685, 47 L.Ed. 1156, Mr. Justice Holmes, speaking of land bounded on navigable water, declared:

"* * * the land under the water does not belong to the United States, but has passed to the State by its admission to the Union. Nevertheless, it has become established almost without argument that * * * the effect of the grant on the title to adjoining submerged land will be determined by the law of the state where the land lies. * * *."

The Supreme Court of the United States, in Barney v. City of Keokuk, 94 U.S. 324, at page 338, 24 L.Ed. 224, said:

"* * *. Whether, as rules of property, it would now be safe to change these doctrines doctrines of the several States with regard to ownership of the soil in navigable waters above tidewater where they have been applied, * * * is for the several States themselves to determine. If they choose to resign to the riparian proprietor rights which properly belong to them in their sovereign capacity, it is not for others to raise objections. * * *."

Since enactment of California Civil Code § 830, it has...