Utah ex rel. Div. Of Foresty, Fire & State v. U.S.
| Decision Date | 04 June 2008 |
| Docket Number | No. 06-4062.,06-4062. |
| Citation | 528 F.3d 712 |
| Parties | State Of UTAH, by and through its DIVISION OF FORESTRY, FIRE & STATE LANDS, Plaintiff-Appellee, Utah Lake Users; National Audubon Society; Great Salt Lake Audubon, Utah Council of Trout Unlimited; Sam Rushforth; Glenn Foreman, Plaintiffs-Intervenors-Appellees, v. UNITED STATES of America; Department of the Interior, BLM; United States Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation; Eluid Martinez, in his official capacity as Commissioner; U.S. Army Corp of Engineers; Brooks Carter, in his official capacity as Chief, Utah Regulatory Office; Richard W. Davis; Col. Dorothy F. Klasse, in her official capacity as District Engineer; Carol M. Lee; Carol J. Lee; Alton M. Lee; A. Maughn Lee; Don F. Ensign; John M. Hailes, Pauline P. Hailes; Susan L. Bastian, Dick E. Bastian, Havergal Green, a Limited Partnership; Phyllis Ensign; Donna C. Jacobson; Phillip R. Green; Rodger D. Grange; Rhonda L. Grange; Charles Garner; Alma L. Earl; Robert C. Beverly; Carol Beverly; Nathan B. Johnson; Donna S. Johnson; Joann G. Jones; Reva Smith; A. Doyle Smith; Colleen P. Ohran; Venice C. Gammon, Trustee of the Venice C. Gammon Revocable Trust; J. Rulon Gammon, Trustee of the J. Rulon Gammon Revocable Trust; Pauline G. Pugh; Fowers Fruit Ranch; Mary B. Herbert; James S. Evans; Floyd H. Evans; Peggy F. Bishop; Lisa Dombrosky; Daniel R. Bishop; Carolyn Everett; Roy B. Monk, Trustee of the Monk Family Trust; Williamson Farms; Kingsbury Wildlife Farms; The Great Stock Company Of Vast International Import; Jerald L. Cross; Laurie Cross; Beth W. Clegg; Robert H. Herbert; Gray Lowery; Mac Carter; Nancy Carter; Gaylen W. Brown; Norma S. Smith; Waldo Company; White Eagle Farms; Valum And Vataval; Harbour Links Association; Keith Y. Barney; Isabelle J. Barney; Geneva Steel; Steve Bunker; Allen C. Christensen; Wayne A. Christensen; Darrel L. Clegg; Darrel Lewis Clegg; Allen C. Cox; Crandall Properties; Durrant, Winnifred H. Family Limited Partnership; Donald P. Ensign; Susan S. Evans; Merlene S. Evans, Don Green; Howard F. Hatch; George M. Hinckley; Nita J. Hinckley; Daniel Milton Holdaway; Keith R. Holdway; Joni V. Holdaway; J L.C., a Utah Limited Liability Company; Robert G. Jacobson; Edward D. Johnson; Wanda L. Johnson; Evan Johnson; Dorthy H. Scott; Verlon Terry Scott; Leonard C. Simpson; Swanny L. Simpson; Ersel O. Steele; E. Leon Stubbs; Bonnie J. Stubbs; Peter S. Uluave; Sheryl D. Uluave; Dan R. Williams; Karen W. Williams; Dean S. Willies; Leatrice M. Willies; Claudia Wright; David Wright; Janet B. Youd, Dixie B. Fenn; Beverly D. Davis; B. Niel Christensen, Landowner; Beth Holdway, Landowner; Federal DFTS., Federal Dfts. consists of USA, DOI/BLM, RECLAM, Eluid Martinez, U.S. Army Corp of Eng(T), Dorothy F. Klasse(T), Brooks Carter(T), and Sally Wisely; Landowner DFTS; Sally E. Wisely, Utah State Director of the Bureau of Land Management, DOI, Defendants, and Clinger Family Partnership, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
M. Dayle Jeffs, Jeffs & Jeffs, P.C., Provo, UT, for the Defendant-Appellant Clinger Family Partnership.
Michael S. Johnson, Assistant Utah Attorney General (J. Mark Ward, Assistant Utah Attorney General, and Mark L. Shurtleff, Utah Attorney General, with him on the brief), Salt Lake City, UT, for the Plaintiff-Appellee the State of Utah by and through its Division of Forestry, Fire, and State Lands.
W. Cullen Battle, Fabian & Clendenin, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Joro Walker, Western Resource Advocates, Salt Lake City, UT, for Plaintiffs-Intervenors-Appellees National Audubon, et al.
Before HENRY, Chief Judge, and KELLY and LUCERO, Circuit Judges.
The State of Utah, by and through its Division of Forestry, Fire, and State Lands (Utah), filed this quiet title action against the United States and private landowners pursuant to the Federal Quiet Title Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2409(a), and state law. Utah asserted title to the lakebed of Utah Lake, a navigable body of freshwater west of Provo that covers 150 square miles. See Utah Div. of State Lands v. United States, 482 U.S. 193, 198, 107 S.Ct. 2318, 96 L.Ed.2d 162 (1987). Utah based its claims upon the equal footing doctrine, under which the State automatically acquired ownership of the lakebed on January 4, 1896, when it entered the union. See id. at 195-96, 107 S.Ct. 2318. It asserted that it owned the land up to the lake's ordinary high water mark at statehood — "the level where the body of water would normally stand during high water period, when not affected by floods and draught and free from all other disturbing causes." Provo City v. Jacobsen, 111 Utah 39, 176 P.2d 130, 136 (1947) (Larson, C.J., dissenting).
This appeal involves Utah's claim against one of the private landowners: the Clinger Family Partnership (the Clingers). The Clingers own approximately sixty-three acres on the east side of Utah Lake, in an area known as the Powell Slough. They trace their title to a patent issued by the United States to James Clinger in 1881.
In the early stages of this litigation, Utah and the Clingers reached an agreed resolution of their boundary dispute: they filed a joint motion to quiet title in the Clingers and against Utah down to an elevation of 4,481 feet above sea level. In a judgment entered in November 2002, the district court granted the parties' request, quieting title to the parcel described by the parties "and to the property lakeward to an elevation of 4,481 [mean sea level] against all claims the State has in its sovereign capacity or could bring as against [the Clingers] at this time." Aplt's App. vol. II, at 583-84. However, Utah subsequently filed a motion under Rule 60(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to set aside the judgment, reasoning that state land officials had not approved the decision to agree to quieting title to the Clingers down to the 4,481-foot elevation.
The district court granted Utah's Rule 60(b) motion and then entered summary judgment in favor of Utah on its claim against the Clingers. The court concluded that the Clingers did not have title to lake-abutting land because the United States owned parcels between the Clingers' parcel and Utah Lake at the time the Clingers' predecessors first acquired the patent. Therefore, the court said, only the United States' un-patented lands were subject to Utah's claim to sovereign lakebed lands.
In this appeal, the Clingers argue that (a) Utah lacked standing to pursue its claims against them; (b) the district court abused its discretion in vacating the stipulated judgment in favor of the Clingers; (c) the district court erred in ruling on the Clingers' lack of title to the disputed property because that issue was never pled in the litigation; and (d) the district court also erred in interpreting the Color of Title Act, 43 U.S.C. § 1068. We are not persuaded by these arguments, and we therefore affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment to Utah on its claim against the Clingers.
The relevant facts are not disputed. Utah filed this action in 1997 against the United States and an individual landowner, Richard Davis. In 1999, Utah amended its complaint to add approximately two hundred individual landowners, including the Clingers. In both complaints, Utah requested the district court to determine the boundary between the lakebed of Utah Lake (which it owned as a sovereign under the equal footing doctrine) and the adjoining properties. The Clingers contested Utah's claim, based on "[their] title to the property and [their] possessory use of the same for in excess of one hundred twenty five years." Aplt's App. vol. I, at 264 (Answer to Amended Complaint and Counterclaim). The Clingers alleged that Utah had encroached on their property, and they sought a decree quieting their title and enjoining any further encroachment.
In support of their positions, Utah and the Clingers advanced conflicting accounts of the lakebed boundary in the Powell Slough. Both parties invoked United States Geological Survey (USGS) determinations in 1856 and 1874. In those years, the USGS established two meander lines— "the mean high-water elevation [ ] segregating the land covered by navigable waters from land available for public sale and settlement." Utah Div. of State Lands, 482 U.S. at 205, 107 S.Ct. 2318. The first of these meander lines (established in 1856) was above the second (established in 1874).
In the part of the Powell Slough at issue in this appeal, the 1856 meander line ran from the northwest to the southeast through the northeast quarter of Section 29, Township 6, South Range 2 East. The 1856 survey produced sub-40 acre parcels immediately adjacent to and eastward of the meander line. Those parcels included lots 1 and 2, which were subsequently acquired by the Clingers. Lots 1 and 2 did not extend below the 1856 meander line, and none of the land west (or lakeward) of the 1856 meander line was surveyed, subdivided, or opened for entry pursuant to the 1856 survey.
Following the 1874 survey and the identification of a lower meander line, the USGS established Lots 3, 4, and 5 below the 1856 meander line. Those lots appear in the 1875 United States Government Land Office Plat, and they block the lake frontage that lots 1 and 2 had in the 1856 plat. Lots 3, 4, and 5 have not been patented by the federal government.1
In its complaint and its amended complaint, Utah asserted that the upper (1856) meander line was the best documentary evidence of the ordinary high water mark at statehood, and that, as a result, the 1856 meander line should determine the boundary of the lake. Under that theory, neither the United States nor the private landowner defendants would have any right to property below that line.
In response, the Clingers asserted title to lots 1 and 2 in section 29 pursuant to a patent first issued by the United States to James Clinger on November...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Boelter v. Advance Magazine Publishers Inc.
...of which may confer standing. In such a case, the requirements of Art. III may be met."); Utah ex rel. Div. of Forestry, Fire & State Lands v. United States , 528 F.3d 712, 721 (10th Cir.2008) ("Although Article III standing is a question of federal law, state law may create the asserted le......
-
Mexico v. Dep't of the Interior, 14-2219
...that consideration ofspecial solicitude supported conclusion that state had standing); Utah ex rel. Div. of Forestry, Fire & State Lands v. United States, 528 F.3d 712, 721 (10th Cir. 2008) (same); cf. Texas v. United States, 809 F.3d 134, 162 (5th Cir. 2015) ("[O]ur determination that Texa......
- Dist. of Columbia v. ExxonMobil Oil Corp.
-
Jager v. InFirst Bank (In re Jager)
...See Baicker-McKee, Federal Civil Rules Handbook at p. 1226 (Thomson Reuters/West 2014)(citing Utah ex rel. Div. of Forestry, Fire & State Lands v. U.S., 528 F.3d 712, 722-23 (10th Cir. 2008) ; Manning v. Astrue, 510 F.3d 1246, 1249 (10th Cir. 2007) ).Motions seeking relief under Fed.R.Civ.P......