Source: https://m.openjurist.org/524/us/38/united-states-v-w-beggerly
Timestamp: 2019-11-18 03:59:25
Document Index: 127070423

Matched Legal Cases: ['§2409', '§2409', '§459', '§459', '§2409', '§1345', '§2409', '§2409', '§2409', '§1056']

524 US 38 United States v. W Beggerly | OpenJurist
524 U.S. 38 - United States v. W Beggerly
524 US 38 United States v. W Beggerly
524 U.S. 38
118 S.Ct. 1862
141 L.Ed.2d 32
Chris W. BEGGERLY et al.
(b) Equitable tolling is not available in a QTA suit. Such tolling is not permissible where it is inconsistent with the relevant statute's text. The QTA's express 12-year statute of limitations runs from the date the plaintiff or his predecessor in interest "knew or should have known'' of the United States' claim. 28 U.S.C. §2409a(g). Thus, the Act has already effectively allowed for equitable tolling. See Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 498 U.S. 89, 96, 111 S.Ct. 453, 457-458, 112 L.Ed.2d 435. Given this fact and the QTA's unusually generous limitations period, extension of the statutory period would be unwarranted. P. ____.
In 1979, the United States brought a quiet title action (the Adams litigation) in the Southern District of Mississippi against respondents and nearly 200 other defendants. On the eve of trial, the Government and the respondents entered into a settlement whereby title to the disputed land was quieted in favor of the United States in return for a payment of $208,175.87. Judgment was entered based on this settlement agreement. In 1994, some 12 years after that judgment, respondents sued in the District Court to set aside the settlement agreement and obtain a damage award for the disputed land. Their claims for relief were based on the Court's ancillary jurisdiction, relating back to the Adams litigation, and on the Quiet Title Act (QTA). 28 U.S.C. §2409a. We hold that respondents were not entitled to relief on either of these grounds.
In 1971, Congress enacted legislation authorizing the Department of the Interior to create the Gulf Islands National Seashore, a federal park on lands that include Horn Island. 16 U.S.C. §459h. The legislation authorized the Secretary of the Interior to acquire privately owned lands within the proposed park's boundaries. §459h-1. The National Park Service (NPS) began negotiating with respondents to purchase the land. Before any deal could be completed, however, the NPS learned that the United States Government had never patented the property. Believing that this meant that respondents could not have had clear title, the NPS backed out of the proposed deal.
In its view, the settlement agreement could therefore be set aside. Second, the Court of Appeals concluded that the QTA conferred jurisdiction. The QTA includes a 12-year statute of limitations, which begins to run from the date the plaintiff knows or should have known about the claim of the United States. 28 U.S.C. §2409a(g). The Court of Appeals noted that the respondents knew about the Government's claim for more than 12 years before it filed this suit, but concluded that the 12-year statute was subject to equitable tolling and should be tolled in this case.
Satisfied as to its jurisdiction, the Court of Appeals then addressed the merits. Relying on the Boudreau grant, the Court concluded that the "United States has no legitimate claim to the land [and that] the validity of the Beggerlys' title is a legal certainty.'' 114 F.3d, at 489. It therefore vacated the settlement agreement and remanded the case to the District Court with instructions that it enter judgment quieting title in favor of respondents. One judge dissented. We granted certiorari, 522 U.S. ----, 118 S.Ct. 679, 139 L.Ed.2d 628 (1998), and now reverse.
The Government's primary contention is that the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that it had jurisdiction over respondents' 1994 suit. It first attacks the lower court's conclusion that jurisdiction was established because the suit was an "independent action'' within the meaning of Rule 60(b). The Government argues that an "independent action'' must be supported by an independent source of jurisdiction, and, in the case of a suit against the United States, an independent waiver of sovereign immunity. Whereas the District Court had jurisdiction over the original Adams litigation because the United States was the plaintiff, 28 U.S.C. §1345, there was no statutory basis for the Beggerlys' 1994 action, and the District Court was therefore correct to have dismissed it.
We think the Government's position is inconsistent with the history and language of Rule 60(b). Prior to the 1937 adoption of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the availability of relief from a judgment or order turned on whether the court was still in the same "term'' in which the challenged judgment was entered. If it was, the judge "had plenary power . . . to modify his judgment for error of fact or law or even revoke it altogether.'' Zimmern v. United States, 298 U.S. 167, 169-170, 56 S.Ct. 706, 707, 80 L.Ed. 1118 (1936). If the term had expired, resort had to be made to a handful of writs, the precise contours of which were "shrouded in ancient lore and mystery.'' Advisory Committee's Notes on 1946 Amdt. to Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 60, 28 U.S.C.App., p. 787. The new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure did away with the notion that the continuation or expiration of a term of court had any affect on a court's power. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 6(c), rescinded 1966. New Rule 60(b)1 sought to establish a new system to govern requests to reopen judgments. The original Rule 60(b) provided:
The new rule thus made clear that nearly all of the old forms of obtaining relief from a judgment, i.e., coram nobis, coram vobis, audita querela, bills of review, and bills in the nature of review, had been abolished. The revision made equally clear, however, that one of the old forms, i.e., the "independent action,''2 still survived. The Advisory Committee notes confirmed this, indicating that " [i]f the right to make a motion is lost by the expiration of the time limits fixed in these rules, the only other procedural remedy is by a new or independent action to set aside a judgment upon those principles which have heretofore been applied in such an action.'' Advisory Committee Notes, supra, at 787.
The "independent action'' sounded in equity. While its precise contours are somewhat unclear, it appears to have been more broadly available than the more narrow writs that the 1946 Amendment abolished. One case that exemplifies the category is Pacific R.R. of Missouri v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 111 U.S. 505, 4 S.Ct. 583, 28 L.Ed. 498 (1884).3
"On the question of jurisdiction the [subsequent] suit may be regarded as ancillary to the [prior] suit, so that the relief asked may be granted by the court which made the decree in that suit, without regard to the citizenship of the present parties . . . . The bill, though an original bill in the chancery sense of the word, is a continuation of the former suit, on the question of the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court.'' 111 U.S., at 522, 4 S.Ct., at 592.
"According to the averments of the original petition for injunction . . . the judgments in question would not have been rendered against Mrs. Marshall but for the use in evidence of the letter alleged to be forged. The case evidently intended to be presented by the petition is one where, without negligence, laches or other fault upon the part of petitioner, [respondent] has fraudulently obtained judgments which he seeks, against conscience, to enforce by execution.'' Id., at 596, 12 S.Ct., at 64.
The sense of these expressions is that, under the Rule, an independent action should be available only to prevent a grave miscarriage of justice. In this case, it should be obvious that respondents' allegations do not nearly approach this demanding standard. Respondents allege only that the United States failed to "thoroughly search its records and make full disclosure to the Court'' regarding the Boudreau grant. App. 23. Whether such a claim might succeed under Rule 60(b)(3) we need not now decide; it surely would work no "grave miscarriage of justice,'' and perhaps no miscarriage of justice at all, to allow the judgment to stand. We therefore hold that the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that this was a sufficient basis to justify the reopening of the judgment in the Adams litigation.4
The Court of Appeals did not, however, merely reopen the Adams litigation. It also directed the District Court to quiet title to the property in the respondents' favor. The Court of Appeals believed that the QTA, 28 U.S.C. §2409a, provided jurisdiction to do this. The QTA permits "plaintiffs to name [the United States] as a party defendant in civil actions to adjudicate title disputes involving real property in which the United States claims an interest.'' Block v. North Dakota ex rel. Board of Univ. and School Lands, 461 U.S. 273, 275-276, 103 S.Ct. 1811, 1813-1814, 75 L.Ed.2d 840 (1983). The QTA includes an express 12-year statute of limitations, which begins to run from the date upon which the plaintiff's cause of action accrued. An action under the QTA "shall be deemed to have accrued on the date the plaintiff or his predecessor in interest knew or should have known of the claim of the United States.'' §2409a(g).
The Court of Appeals acknowledged that the Beggerlys had known about the Government's claim to the land since at least 1979, more than 12 years before they filed this action in 1994. It concluded that the suit was not barred, however, because the QTA's statute of limitations was subject to equitable tolling, and that, "in light of the diligence displayed by the [respondents] in seeking the truth and pursuing their rights,'' equity demanded that the statute be tolled in this case. 114 F.3d, at 489. In our view, the Court of Appeals was wrong in deciding that equitable tolling is available in a QTA suit.
As the Court correctly observes, the text of the Quiet Title Act, 28 U.S.C. §2409a(g), expressly allows equitable tolling by providing that the statute of limitations will not begin to run until the plaintiff or the plaintiff's predecessor "knew or should have known of the claim of the United States.'' Because the Beggerlys were aware of the Government's claim more than 12 years before they filed this action, the Court correctly holds that there is no basis for any additional equitable tolling in this case. We are not confronted with the question whether a doctrine such as fraudulent concealment or equitable estoppel might apply if the Government were guilty of outrageous misconduct that prevented the plaintiff, though fully aware of the Government's claim of title, from knowing of her own claim. Those doctrines are distinct from equitable tolling, see 4 Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure §1056 (Supp.1998); cf. United States v. Locke, 471 U.S. 84, 94, n. 10, 105 S.Ct. 1785, 1792, n. 10, 85 L.Ed.2d 64 (1985) (referring separately to estoppel and equitable tolling), and conceivably might apply in such an unlikely hypothetical situation. The Court need not (and, therefore, properly does not) address that quite different type of case. Accordingly, I join the Court's opinion without reservation.