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Parties Involved:
Bureau of Land Management
Appellant
Department of Interior
Appellant
Interior Board of Land Appeals
Appellant
Edward N. Juhan
Appellee
Edward H. Koch
Appellee
Roberta A. Lemon
Appellee
Walter B. Lemon
Appellee
United States of America
Appellant
Anthony F. Zarlengo
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS F I L E D 

Ualtecl States Court of Appub 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

EDWARD H. KOCH, WALTER B. LEMON, 

ROBERTA A. LEMON, EDWARD N. JUHAN, 

ANTHONY F. ZARLENGO, 

Plaintiffs-Appellees, 

v. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, DEPARTMENT 

OF INTERIOR, INTERIOR BOARD OF LAND 

APPEALS (THE) I BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT I 

Defendants-Appellants. 

Tenth Circ:uit 

JAN 31 1995 

PATRICK FISHER 

Clerk 

No. 93-1298 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO 

(D.C. No. 91-C-470) 

Kenneth Balcomb, of Delaney & Balcomb, P.C., Glenwood Springs, 

Colorado (Robert M. Noone and Margaret O'Donnell, with him on the 

briefs) for Plaintiffs-Appellees. 

Jacques B. Gelin, Attorney for the Department of Justice, 

Environment & Natural Resources Division, Washington D.C. (Gerald 

S. Fish and David c. Shilton, Attorneys, Department of Justice, 

Environment & Natural Resources Division, Lois J. Schiffer, Acting 

Assistant Attorney General for the District of Colorado, James R. 

Allison, United States Attorney for the District of Colorado, Paul 

J. Johns, Assistant United States Attorney for the District of 

Colorado and Lyle K. Rising, Of Counsel, Office of the Regional 

Solicitor, Department of the Interior, with him on the briefs) for 

the Defendants-Appellants. 

Before TACHA and BARRETT, Circuit Judges, and CAMPOS, Senior 

District Judge.* 

* The Honorable Santiago E. Campos, Senior District Judge, 

United States District Court for the District of New Mexico, 

sitting by designation. 

Appellate Case: 93-1298 Document: 01019290321 Date Filed: 01/31/1995 Page: 1 
TACHA, Circuit Judge. 

This appeal results from a dispute over the ownership of six 

land masses on the Colorado River. Plaintiffs claim ownership of 

the lands through patents granted by the United States; the United 

States contends that the "islands" remained public lands following 

the execution of the patents. The case originated in the Interior 

Board of Land Appeals (IBLA), which ultimately ruled in favor of 

the government. Plaintiffs then filed suit in federal court. The 

district court reversed the IBLA's decision, granting summary 

judgment in plaintiffs' favor. The government now appeals. We 

exercise jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm. 

I. BACKGROUND 

In 1889 and 1891, Peter Crutchfield and George House surveyed 

the area surrounding the land masses in question (in shorthand, 

the "islands"). The surveyors described each island in their 

field notes and identified them on the plats prepared from their 

notes. Crutchfield and House never meandered the islands, 

however, so that the islands remained officially unsurveyed. The 

United States patented the surveyed land adjacent to the Colorado 

River, incorporating by reference the relevant plats and field 

notes. Plaintiffs now claim ownership of these islands through 

the chain of title from these patents. 

In 1982 the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced that it 

would survey nine islands along the same stretch of the Colorado 

River. The BLM determined that, although those nine islands 

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Appellate Case: 93-1298 Document: 01019290321 Date Filed: 01/31/1995 Page: 2 
existed at the time of the original survey, they had not yet been 

meandered. The BLM announced in 1987 that it would file in its 

Colorado office the survey plats that included the islands, 

indicating that the BLM believed that the islands belonged to the 

federal government. 

Several individuals protested the proposed filings, asserting 

ownership of the islands deriving from the patents to the lands 

adjacent to the river. The Colorado State Director of the BLM 

dismissed the protests, asserting that the United States owned the 

islands because they were previously unsurveyed. 

Plaintiffs claiming ownership to six of the nine islands 

appealed to the IBLA.1 The parties then entered into a number of 

stipulations before the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) . Under 

these stipulations, the parties agreed that the surveys were 

performed properly, that this portion of the Colorado River was 

non-navigable, and that the reason these six islands were not 

originally surveyed was that they were of little value. After a 

hearing, the ALJ ruled in favor of plaintiffs, holding that the 

islands "passed with the patent to the uplands adjacent to the 

parcels." On appeal, the IBLA reversed the ALJ's decision. It 

reasoned that the United States was authorized to survey the lands 

because the islands were well-defined bodies of public land 

omitted from the original survey. 

Plaintiffs appealed to federal court, asserting subject 

matter jurisdiction under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 

1 Because persons claiming ownership to three of the islands 

did not appeal to the IBLA, those islands are not a subject of 

this action. 

3 

Appellate Case: 93-1298 Document: 01019290321 Date Filed: 01/31/1995 Page: 3 
U.S.C. §§ 701-706. The same stipulations that had been placed 

before the IBLA were put into evidence in district court. While 

accepting the IBLA's factual findings, the district court reversed 

the IBLA's decision. The court concluded that the land masses 

were islands, that state law should govern the construction of the 

patents, and that state law vested title in plaintiffs. 

The government now appeals to this court, alleging that the 

district court erred in failing to apply the following rules of 

law: a patent from the United States does not pass title to an 

island existing when the survey was made; unsurveyed land cannot 

be conveyed; government grants must be clear and unambiguous; and 

the government cannot be bound by estoppel. 

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW 

This case results from an administrative proceeding. As a 

reviewing court, our task is to determine the legal principles 

underlying the rights of riparian land owners against the United 

States. Because the legal determination does not depend on the 

agency's interpretation of a statutory provision, cf. Chevron, 

U.S.A., Inc. v. National Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 

837, 842-45 (1984), we review these questions of law de novo, see 

Kapcia v. INS, 944 F.2d 702, 705 (lOth Cir. 1991); United Transp. 

Union v. Dole, 797 F.2d 823, 828 (lOth Cir. 1986). We review the 

IBLA's factual findings deferentially, upholding the findings as 

long as they are supported by substantial evidence in the record 

as a whole. See Arkansas v. Oklahoma, 112 S. Ct. 1046, 1060 

(1992); Monfort, Inc. v. NLRB, 965 F.2d 1538, 1540 (lOth Cir. 

1992) . 

4 

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As we noted earlier, the parties agreed to a number of 

stipulations. While this court will honor stipulations regarding 

factual issues, see. e.g., Vallejos v. C.E. Glass Co., 583 F.2d 

507, 510-11 (lOth Cir. 1978), "[i]t is well-settled that a court 

is not bound by stipulations of the parties as to questions of 

law," Dimidowich v. Bell & Howell, 803 F.2d 1473, 1477 n.l (9th 

Cir. 1986). 

III. THE EQUAL FOOTING DOCTRINE 

Before addressing whether the patents granted title in the 

islands to plaintiffs' predecessors in interest, we must determine 

whether the islands passed to Colorado when it became a state in 

1876. If the islands passed to Colorado when it entered the 

Union, the United States government cannot now survey the lands as 

its own. 

The equal footing doctrine is grounded in the idea that new 

states enter the Union with the same rights as the original 

states. Pollard's Lessee v. Hagan, 44 u.s. 212, 230 (1845) ("The 

new states have the same rights, sovereignty, and jurisdiction 

. as the original states."); see also Utah Div. of State Lands v. 

United States, 482 U.S. 193, 195-97 (1987). In Pollard's Lessee, 

the Supreme Court held that "[t]he shores of navigable waters, and 

the soils under them, were not granted by the Constitution to the 

United States, but were reserved to the states respectively." 

Pollard's Lessee, 44 U.S. at 230. Because a new state enters the 

Union on "equal footing" with the original states, it acquires 

title to the lands under the navigable waters within its borders. 

Id.; see also Texas v. Louisiana, 410 U.S. 703, 713 (1973). 

5 

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Therefore, if these islands are in a navigable part of the 

Colorado River and are part of the stream bed,2 they passed to the 

state in 1876. 

The parties have stipulated, however, that these islands lie 

in a non-navigable portion of the Colorado River. The equal 

footing doctrine simply does not cause land in non-navigable 

waters to pass from the federal government to the state. 

Consequently, the State of Colorado did not acquire the islands in 

1876, and the federal government held the islands as public land 

following Colorado's entry into the Union. 

IV. THE PATENTS 

We next review whether plaintiffs hold title to the land by 

virtue of the patents that the United States government gave to 

plaintiffs' predecessors in interest.3 Of course, if the federal 

2 The Supreme Court has refined the rule that lands underlying 

navigable streams belong to the states. Islands that are fast dry 

land and not part of the bed or stream do not pass to the states. 

Scott v. Lattig, 227 U.S. 229, 244 (1913); see also Texas, 410 

u.s. at 713 (reaffirming the holding in Scott); Moss v. Ramey, 239 

u.s. 538, 546 (1916) ("It was fast, dry land, and neither a part 

of the bed of the river nor land under water, and therefore did 

not pass to the state of Idaho on her admission into the Union."). 

The IBLA found that the land masses were islands which were fast 

dry land. Consequently, the land masses would not have passed to 

the state in 1876 even if the river had been navigable. 

3 We emphasize that the questions of whether the land passes to 

the state and whether it passes under the patent are analytically 

distinct. In their briefs, the parties conflate these issues, 

often using the law governing the passage of land to the state to 

analyze rights under the patents. The Supreme Court, though, has 

clearly used different modes of analysis for the two situations. 

See, e.g., Oklahoma v. Texas, 258 U.S. 574, 591-92 (1922) 

(although the river was not navigable and therefore title did not 

pass to the state upon admission to the Union, the state can claim 

parts of the bed "incidental to its ownership of riparian lands on 

the northerly bank"); United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Water 

Power Co., 209 U.S. 447, 451 (1908) (analyzing "whether the title 

remains in the state or passed to the defendant with the land 

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government intended to retain the islands as public land, then the 

islands remain the property of the United States. See Oklahoma v. 

Texas, 258 U.S. 574, 594-95 (1922) ("If by ... the terms of its 

patent [the government] has shown that it intended to restrict the 

conveyance ... , that intention will be controlling."). The 

government's intention controls the disposition of land granted by 

government patent; thus, the federal government is not bound by 

its mistakes. Scott, 227 U.S. at 241-42; Grand Rapids & I.R. Co. 

v. Butler, 159 U.S. 87, 94 (1895) ("' [M]istakes, of course, do not 

bind the government.'") (quoting Mitchell v. Smale, 140 U.S. 406, 

413 (1891)). 

Nothing in the record clearly reveals the government's intent 

with respect to patents affecting the islands at issue. There is 

no indication that the government intended to part with the 

islands; however, the evidence also does not support the 

contention that the government's failure to survey the islands 

demonstrated its desire to retain them. First, the patents are 

silent as to whether the government continued to view the islands 

as public lands or instead wished to convey the property. Second, 

conveyed by the patent"); Hardin v. Shedd, 190 U.S. 508, 519-20 

(1903) (explaining that the state never owned the land even though 

the courts look to state law to construe the patent) . Of course, this distinction does not mean that the state 

cannot convey title to lands that it has gained through the equal 

footing doctrine. See. e.g., United States v. Mission Rock Co., 

189 U.S. 391, 406 (1903). For example, states own lands under 

navigable streams under the equal footing doctrine. Some states 

automatically grant title in that land to the riparian landowners. 

See. e.g, Shedd, 190 U.S. at 519 ("When land under navigable water 

passes to the riparian proprietor, along with the grant of the 

shore by the United States, it does not pass by force of the grant 

alone, because the United States does not own it, but it passes by 

force of the declaration of the state which does own it that it is 

attached to the shore."). 

7 

Appellate Case: 93-1298 Document: 01019290321 Date Filed: 01/31/1995 Page: 7 
the parties have stipulated that the reason that the government 

did not originally survey the islands was that they were of little 

value, suggesting that the government had no affirmative intent to 

retain or dispose of the islands. Finally, the geographic 

positioning of the islands does not clearly show the government's 

intent. The government patented all of the area around the 

island. Because the river surrounding the islands is nonnavigable, the government had no access to the islands. As the 

government points out, however, it had other means to reach the 

islands, such as condemnation. We therefore find no government 

intent expressed by the patents either to retain or to dispose of 

the islands. 

Given the ambiguity of the grants, the government asks this 

court to subject the patents to "the general rule of construction 

that any ambiguity in a grant is to be resolved favorably to a 

sovereign grantor -- 'nothing passes but what is conveyed in clear 

and explicit language.'" Great N. Ry. Co. v. United States, 315 

U.S. 262, 272 (1942) (quoting Caldwell v. United States, 250 U.S. 

14, 20 (1919)); see also Watt v. Western Nuclear. Inc., 462 U.S. 

36, 59 (1983). But the Supreme Court has not used that 

interpretive technique when examining the effect of a patent on 

islands in adjacent waters. Instead, the Court has stated that 

when the government's intention is ambiguous, "it will be taken to 

have assented that its conveyance should be construed . . . 

according to the law of the state in which the land lies." 

Oklahoma, 258 U.S. at 595. 

8 

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Of course, "' [t]he question as to the extent of this federal 

grant, that is, as to the limit of the land conveyed, . is 

necessarily a federal question.'" Bonelli Cattle Co. v. Arizona, 

414 U.S. 313, 320 (1973) (quoting Borax Consol .. Ltd. v. Los 

Angeles, 296 U.S. 10, 22 (1935)), overruled in part by Oregon ex 

rel. State Land Bd. v. Covallis Sand & Gravel Co., 429 U.S. 363, 

378 (1977). Nevertheless, in this select area of cases, federal 

law directs a court to look to state law to resolve the dispute. 

See Covallis Sand & Gravel Co., 429 U.S. at 378 (stating that the 

"Court has consistently held that state law governs issues 

relating to" riparian lands which did not pass under the equal 

footing doctrine); Chandler-Dunbar, 209 U.S. at 452-53 (applying 

Michigan law); Whitaker v. McBride, 197 U.S. 510, 511-12 (1905) 

("It is the settled rule that the question of the title of a 

riparian owner is one of local law.") ;4 Shedd, 190 U.S. at 519; 

Grand Rapids, 159 U.S. at 92-94 (analyzing Hardin v. Jordan, 140 

u.s. 371 (1891), and applying Michigan law to land grant); Jordan, 

140 U.S. at 384 ("In our judgment the grants of the government for 

lands bounded on streams and other waters, without any reservation 

or restriction of terms, are to be construed as to their effect 

according to the law of the state in which the lands lie.") .5 

4 Although the government was not a party in Whitaker, that 

case illustrates the consistency with which state law is applied 

in this area. 

5 Compare Moss, 239 U.S. at 538, where the Supreme Court first 

found that the islands did not pass to the State of Idaho and 

determined that "[t]he claim that the island passed under the 

patents is ... ill-founded" without looking at state law. Id. 

at 546. 

Moss presents a different situation than our case. In Moss, 

the islands were left unsurveyed by mistake. Id. "The field 

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Moreover, in cases similar to the one at bar, two other circuits 

have interpreted the same Supreme Court opinions as directing the 

court toward state law. See Wolff v. United States, 967 F.2d 222, 

224 (6th Cir.), reh'g denied, 974 F.2d 702 (1992); Bourgeois v. 

United States, 545 F.2d 727, 731 (Ct. Cl. 1976) ("[W]e hold that 

if the intent of the grantor is ambiguous-and the Government 

grants shoreland along non-navigable waters, it also passes title 

to islands according to the law of the state in which the property 

is located.") .6 We therefore look to Colorado state law to 

ascribe rights in the property at issue here. 

• "The general rule of law followed in Colorado is that a deed 

conveying land bordered by a non-navigable stream includes the bed 

to the center." More v. Johnson, 568 P.2d 437, 439 (Colo. 1977); 

see also United States v. Goodrich Farms Partnership, 947 F.2d 

906, 908 (lOth Cir. 1991); People v. Emmert, 597 P.2d 1025, 1027 

(Colo. 1979). This rule conforms to the common law rule for nonnavigable waters. See Jordan, 140 U.S. at 383-84. We therefore 

conclude that Colorado would follow the common law rule for 

islands in the river, which holds that "all grants bounded upon a 

notes and plat represented the survey as extending to the river, 

but made no mention of the island." Id. at 545. In such a case, 

the Supreme Court found that the government intended to retain the 

island. Id.; accord Wolff v. United States, 967 F.2d 222, 225 

(6th Cir.) (reading Moss as representing "the familiar concept 

that the intent of the United States, express or implied, governs 

the scope of the land grants"), reh'g denied, 974 F.2d 702 (1992). 

This reading of Moss is further reinforced by placing it in its 

chronological context. The Court's decision in Oklahoma, 258 U.S. 

at 574, coming six years after Moss, once again applied state law 

to determine the rights of a riparian land owner. Id. at 595. 

6 But see Ritter v. Morton, 513 F.2d 942, 946 (9th Cir.), cert. 

denied, 423 U.S. 947 (1975); United States v. Severson, 447 F.2d 

631, 634-35 (7th Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 1039 (1972). 

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river not navigable by the common law entitle the grantee to all 

islands lying between the main-land and the center thread of the 

current." Id. at 384; see also Grand Rapids, 159 U.S. at 92-93. 

The government does not dispute that the islands fall between the 

mainland and the center thread of the current and has therefore 

waived the issue. Thus, applying Colorado law, we hold that 

plaintiffs own the islands in question. 

V. ATTORNEY'S FEES 

Plaintiffs also ask for attorney's fees under the Equal 

Access to Justice Act (EAJA), 28 u.s.c. § 2412(d) (1) (A). That 

provision allows courts to award fees to a "prevailing party" in 

an action "brought by or against the United States in any court 

having jurisdiction of that action, unless the court finds that 

the position of the United States was substantially justified or 

that special circumstances make an award unjust." Id. A party 

must seek the fee award "within thirty days of final judgment in 

the action." Id. § 2412 (d) (1) (B). 

In this context, a final judgment "means a judgment that is 

final and not appealable." Id. § 2412(d) (2) (G). In other words, 

"[t]he 30-day EAJA clock begins to run after the time to appeal . 

. . has expired." Melkonyan v. Sullivan, 501 U.S. 89, 96 (1991) . 

We must therefore determine whether we can reach the merits of the 

attorney's fees question even though either party could appeal 

this decision (i.e., by applying for certiorari to the Supreme 

Court) . 

In Melkonyan, the Supreme Court left open the question of 

whether a party can ask for fees "at any time 1m to 30 days after 

11 

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entry of judgment, and even before judgment is entered, as long as 

he has achieved prevailing party status." Id. at 103. The Court, 

however, has subsequently resolved this issue. In Shalala v. 

Schaefer, 113 S. Ct. 2625 (1993), the district court had never 

entered the judgment by filing a separate document as required by 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 58, so the time for filing an appeal of the 

district court's decision technically had not run. The Court held 

that the plaintiff was nevertheless entitled to file for 

attorney's fees. Id. at 2632. Schaefer therefore makes clear 

that a plaintiff may ask for attorney's fees even when the time 

for appeal has not elapsed. Thus, we hold that plaintiffs' 

request before this court is timely, and we will examine the 

merits of their attorney's fees claim. 

To repeat, plaintiffs are not entitled to attorney's fees if 

the government's position is "substantially justified." In this 

context, "substantially" means "'justified in substance or in the 

main' -- that is, justified to a degree that could satisfy a 

reasonable person." Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 552, 565 

(1988); see also Gatson v. Bowen, 854 F.2d 379, 380 (lOth Cir. 

1988). While the rulings of other courts are not dispositive of 

whether the government's position is substantially justified, "a 

string of losses can be indicative; and even more so a string of 

successes." Pierce, 487 u.s. at 569. 

In this matter, the law of this circuit was unclear before 

this case. In addition, other circuits had disagreed over whether 

state law applied under these circumstances. Compare Wolff, 967 

F.2d at 222, and Bourgeois, 545 F.2d at 727, with Ritter, 513 F.2d 

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at 942, and Severson, 447 F.2d at 631. We therefore hold that the 

position of the United States was substantially justified in this 

case, and plaintiffs are not entitled to attorney's fees under the 

EAJA. 

V. CONCLUSION 

Federal law instructs the court to apply state law to ascribe 

title under the circumstances of this case. Because Colorado law 

would vest title in plaintiffs, we hold that plaintiffs are the 

rightful owners of the islands. The government's position in this 

case was substantially justified, however, so plaintiffs are not 

entitled to attorney's fees under the EAJA. The decision of the 

district court is therefore AFFIRMED. 

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