The Ninth Circuit considered whether the district court had jurisdiction over a quiet title claim and ejection action, and whether the district court properly concluded that disputed property was in the state of California. The court reversed on both issues.
The United States brought an action in district court to quiet title on behalf of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, alleging that the disputed property was attached by accretion[1] to land held in trust for the Tribe by the United States government. The defendant landowners were successors in title to a 1905 patent and asserted ownership of the disputed property under that patent. The defendants alleged that prior to 1905, avulsive[2] movement shifted the Colorado River to the patent boundary. The district court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction because the disputed property had become part of California rather than Arizona during avulsion of the Colorado River in 1857. Despite its decision that it lacked jurisdiction, the district court decided the merits of the case, concluding that the disputed property belonged to the private landowners.
The Ninth Circuit reversed on the jurisdictional issue, noting that the Interstate Compact Defining the Boundary Between the States of Arizona and California[3] set the boundary along the centerline of the channel of the Colorado River. The Ninth Circuit determined that the disputed property lay east of the river, in Arizona rather than California.
The Ninth Circuit then addressed the ownership issue, concluding that the district court erred in considering pre-patent avulsive movements. Because California did not hold legal title to the disputed land until 1905, any river movements before that date were irrelevant for the purpose of establishing title. The private landowners argued that title vested in 1850 with California statehood and enactment of the Swamp and Overflowed Lands Act (Swamp Act).[4] Under the Swamp Act, the Secretary of the Interior patented any unsold swamp or overflowed lands to the states.[5] The Ninth Circuit discussed a series of Supreme Court decisions[6] concerning the Swamp Act, noting that these cases principally held that patents remain with the government until issued. The Ninth Circuit held that the "controlling date"[7] in a quiet title claim based on the position of a river is the patent date. The court concluded that the district court erred in its analysis, and because both accretions and avulsions had occurred after the patent date, the court remanded the case to the district court to determine title ownership.
[1] The Ninth Circuit defines "accretion" as "the gradual, imperceptible addition to land forming the banks of a stream by the deposit of waterborne solids or by the gradual recession of water which exposes previously submerged terrain." State v. Jacobs, 380 P.2d 998, 1000-01 (Ariz. 1963). When a river shifts by accretion, any property boundary set by the river moves with it to the center of the new channel.
[2] The Ninth Circuit defines "avulsion" as a phenomena that occurs when a river "abandons its old course and adopts a new one 'suddenly or in such a manner as not to destroy the identity of the land between the old and new channels.'" United States ex rel. Fort Mojave Indian Tribe v. Byrne, 279 F.3d 677, 680 (9th Cir. 2002) (quoting Jacobs, 380 P.2d at 1001), amended and superseded by No. 00-16008, 2002 WL 1060836 (9th Cir. May 29, 2002). When a river shifts by avulsion, any property boundary set by the river remains in the center of the original channel. Id.
