Source: https://m.openjurist.org/575/f2d/620/united-states-court-of-appeals-eighth-circuit
Timestamp: 2019-12-07 22:50:28
Document Index: 489726027

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 194', '§ 15', '§ 194', '§ 138', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 194', '§ 194', '§ 345', '§ 25']

575 F2d 620 United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit | OpenJurist
575 F. 2d 620 - United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit
575 F2d 620 United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit
OMAHA INDIAN TRIBE, TREATY OF 1854 WITH the UNITED STATES
(10 Stat. 1043), Organized pursuant to the Act of
6/18/34 (48 Stat. 984; 25 USC 476) as
amended, Appellant,
Roy Tibbals WILSON, Charles G. Lakin, Florence Lakin, R. G.
P. Incorporated, an Iowa corporation, Harold Jackson, Otis
Peterson, Travelers Insurance Company, the State of Iowa,
Darrell L., Harold, Harold M. and Luea Sorenson, State
Conservation Commission of the State of Iowa, Appellees.
P. Incorporated, an Iowa corporation, Harold
Jackson, Otis Peterson, Travelers
State of Iowa, Appellees.
Nos. 77-1384 and 77-1387.
Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied May 2, 1978.
After a lengthy trial the district court, the Honorable Andrew W. Bogue presiding, found that the boundary of the Omaha Indian Reservation had shifted with the movements of the Missouri River and quieted title in the defendant landowners. The court found that the plaintiffs had failed to prove that the river movements were controlled by the doctrine of avulsion and held that the river had changed by reason of the erosion of reservation land and accretion to Iowa riparian land. United States v. Wilson, 433 F.Supp. 67 (N.D.Iowa 1977). The district court supplemented its findings on the merits with an opinion resolving choice of law problems, setting forth principles governing avulsion and accretion and discussing the allocation of the burden of proof. United States v. Wilson, 433 F.Supp. 57 (N.D.Iowa 1977).
In Oregon ex rel. State Land Board v. Corvallis Sand & Gravel Co., 429 U.S. 363, 97 S.Ct. 582, 50 L.Ed.2d 550 (1977), the Supreme Court reaffirmed the basic rule that the laws of the several states determine the ownership of the banks and shores of waterways. Id. at 378-79, 97 S.Ct. 582. However, the Court recognized an important caveat to this rule:
Id. at 375, 97 S.Ct. at 589.11
As the Supreme Court noted in Arkansas v. Tennessee, 246 U.S. 158, 176, 38 S.Ct. 301, 306, 62 L.Ed. 638 (1918):
Cf. St. Louis v. Rutz, 138 U.S. 226, 250, 11 S.Ct. 337, 34 L.Ed. 941 (1891).
Federal common law is applicable even where only a single state is involved in a controversy with a private party, see Cissna v. Tennessee, 246 U.S. 289, 38 S.Ct. 306, 62 L.Ed. 720 (1918), or where only private parties are involved, see Hinderlider v. La Plata River & Cherry Creek Ditch Co., 304 U.S. 92, 58 S.Ct. 803, 82 L.Ed. 1202 (1938); Committee for Consideration of Jones Falls Sewage System v. Train, 539 F.2d 1006, 1009 n. 8 (4th Cir. 1976); Port of Portland v. An Island In Columbia River, 479 F.2d 549 (9th Cir. 1973); Sherrill v. McShan, 356 F.2d 607 (9th Cir. 1966); Iselin v. La Coste, 139 F.2d 887 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 321 U.S. 790, 64 S.Ct. 791, 88 L.Ed. 1080 (1944), as long as the interests of more than one state are sufficiently implicated in the potential outcome. The rendering of a decision in a private dispute which would "press back" an interstate boundary sufficiently implicates the interests of the states to require the application of federal common law.
An equally compelling reason for applying federal law is the special relationship between the United States and the Omaha Indian Tribe and the nature of the interest litigated. The trial court rejected this position under the authority of Fontenelle v. Omaha Tribe of Nebraska, 298 F.Supp. 855 (D.Neb.1969), aff'd, 430 F.2d 143 (8th Cir. 1970), where the Nebraska federal district court applied Nebraska law in an accretion-avulsion dispute between the Omaha Indian Tribe and individual Indians who traced their title back through individual patents issued to their predecessors by the United States.13 Instead, the trial court, finding no federal regulatory program involved14 and no specific act of Congress which displaced state law, reasoned, citing Herron v. Choctaw & Chickasaw Nations, 228 F.2d 830 (10th Cir. 1956), and Francis v. Francis, 203 U.S. 233, 27 S.Ct. 129, 51 L.Ed. 165 (1906), that local law governed title disputes between the Indian tribe and private claimants. 433 F.Supp. at 61.
It has long been held that the rights and incidents of ownership attaching to grants made by the United States of public lands bounded on streams or other bodies of water, navigable or non-navigable, made without reservation or restriction, are to be construed as to their effect according to the law of the state in which the land lies. The fact that a conveyance disposes of tribal lands of Indians under guardianship does not alter the rule. See Oklahoma v. Texas, 258 U.S. 574, 595, 42 S.Ct. 406, 66 L.Ed. 771 (1922). The Fontenelle decision and the other cases cited by the trial court fall within this settled doctrine. In Packer v. Bird, 137 U.S. 661, 669, 11 S.Ct. 210, 212, 34 L.Ed. 819 (1891), the Court observed:
The present dispute is not related to incidents or rights flowing from a conveyance of public land or related to a patent grant of Indian allotment lands. Instead, the direct challenge made by the Iowa landowners here affects the boundary line to the reservation land itself, as it was originally contained in the Barrett Survey and established by the Treaty of 1854. The claims asserted by the defendants attempt to extinguish the aboriginal rights of the Omaha Indian Tribe, guaranteed by treaty, in these lands.15 Here the Omaha Indian Tribe claims its right to occupy and possess the lands in question arises under federal law. Presumptively, at least, this right has never been extinguished. See discussion of 25 U.S.C. § 194 infra. Under the circumstances the Supreme Court's observation in Oneida Indian Nation v. County of Oneida, 414 U.S. 661, 677, 94 S.Ct. 772, 782, 39 L.Ed.2d 73 (1974), is applicable here:
State law dealing with riparian rights cannot unilaterally extinguish or deprive Indians of their tribal lands. The land area involved in this appeal relates solely to the original reservation land. Therefore, germane here is the Supreme Court's statement in Oneida that: "There being no federal statute making the statutory or decisional law of the State of New York applicable to the reservations, the controlling law remained federal law; and, absent federal statutory guidance, the governing rule of decision would be fashioned by the federal court in the mode of the common law." Id. at 674, 94 S.Ct. at 781.16 Riparian ownership rights have been specifically held to be controlled by federal law where trust land is involved.
Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes v. Namen, 380 F.Supp. 452, 461 (D.Mont.1974), aff'd, 534 F.2d 1376 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 929, 97 S.Ct. 336, 50 L.Ed.2d 300 (1976) (citation omitted).17
See also United States v. Finch, 548 F.2d 822, 832-33 (9th Cir. 1976), vacated on other grounds, 433 U.S. 676, 97 S.Ct. 2909, 53 L.Ed.2d 1048 (1977). Cf. Bauman v. Choctaw-Chickasaw Nations, 333 F.2d 785, 787-89 (10th Cir. 1964), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 965, 85 S.Ct. 658, 13 L.Ed.2d 559 (1965).
The practice of safeguarding Indians in special areas of legislation continues today. See, e. g., DeCoteau v. District County Court, 420 U.S. 425, 444, 95 S.Ct. 1082, 43 L.Ed.2d 300 (1975); Antoine v. Washington, 420 U.S. 194, 199-200, 95 S.Ct. 944, 43 L.Ed.2d 129 (1975).
Arkansas v. Tennessee, 246 U.S. 158, 173, 38 S.Ct. 301, 305, 62 L.Ed. 638 (1918).
See also Missouri v. Nebraska, 196 U.S. 23, 34-35, 25 S.Ct. 155, 49 L.Ed. 372 (1904); Nebraska v. Iowa, 143 U.S. at 360-61, 12 S.Ct. 396; Mayor, Aldermen & Inhabitants of New Orleans v. United States, 35 U.S. (10 Pet.) 662, 9 L.Ed. 573 (1836). Equally well settled is the proposition that
Arkansas v. Tennessee, supra, 246 U.S. at 173, 38 S.Ct. at 304.
See also Missouri v. Nebraska, supra, 196 U.S. at 35, 25 S.Ct. 155; Nebraska v. Iowa, 143 U.S. at 361, 12 S.Ct. 396.
The trial court found that the eastern boundary of the Omaha Indian Reservation changed with the shifting river since the tribe had failed to show that the river had moved by avulsion. In reaching this result the trial court ruled that an avulsion occurs only where a sudden shift in a channel cuts off land "so that after the shift it remains identifiable as land which existed before the change of the channel and which never became a part of the river bed." 433 F.Supp. at 73. In doing so, the trial court rejected the plaintiffs' theory that the doctrine of avulsion is equally applicable when a sudden and perceptible shift of the thalweg occurs within the bed of the stream or over as well as around land in place. The government's evidence was that such a perceptible shift might occur when the river goes out of its bed and the land is submerged by a flood or freshet. We find the district court too narrowly focuses on identifiable land in place as the sole criterion of avulsion without giving proper weight to the plaintiffs' theory of their case and to the factual record presented.24
The Supreme Court has defined accretion as "an addition to land coterminous with the water, which is formed so slowly that its progress cannot be perceived . . . ." Jefferis v. East Omaha Land Co., 134 U.S. 178, 193, 10 S.Ct. 518, 522, 33 L.Ed. 872 (1890).25 In contrast, avulsion has been said to occur in various ways. One observation is that it occurs where there is a "sudden change of the banks of a stream such as occurs when a river forms a new course by going through a bend, the sudden abandonment by a stream of its old channel and the creation of a new one, or a sudden washing from one of its banks of a considerable quantity of land and its deposit on the opposite bank."26 III American Law of Property § 15.26, at 855-56 (1952) (footnotes omitted).
A clear distinction between accretion and the sudden and perceptible movement associated with avulsion is, however, often obscured when applied to the actual movement of uncontrolled rivers. The Supreme Court emphasized the unpredictability of the Missouri River in Nebraska v. Iowa, 406 U.S. 117, 119, 92 S.Ct. 1379, 1381, 31 L.Ed.2d 733 (1972):
The early decision in St. Louis v. Rutz, 138 U.S. 226, 11 S.Ct. 337, 34 L.Ed. 941 (1891), illustrates an attempt at more closely defining avulsion in light of actual river conditions. The Court found that violent erosion of shoreland along the Mississippi River between 1865 and 1875 was avulsive in nature, sustaining findings that "the caving in and washing away of the same was rapid and perceptible . . . (occurring) principally at the spring rises or floods of high water in the Mississippi. . . . " Id. at 231, 11 S.Ct. at 339.28
Rapidity of erosion as the determinative factor in a finding of avulsion was, however, rejected in early dicta in Nebraska v. Iowa, 143 U.S. 359, 12 S.Ct. 396, 36 L.Ed. 186 (1892). See also Oklahoma v. Texas, 260 U.S. 606, 43 S.Ct. 221, 67 L.Ed. 428 (1923) (where the Court applied the rule of accretion, following Nebraska v. Iowa, to the Red River); Philadelphia Co. v. Stimson, 223 U.S. 605, 32 S.Ct. 340, 56 L.Ed. 570 (1912). Although the litigated facts of Nebraska v. Iowa appear to have dealt only with the movement of the Missouri River cutting across the neck of a U-shaped land formation commonly known as an ox-bow,29 the Court expressed its view that the rapidity of the process of subtraction or addition did not prevent application of the rule of accretion.
In discussing the rules of accretion and avulsion the Supreme Court quoted, among others, Vattel, an early civil law authority. Vattel's formulation of avulsion held that "when the violence of the stream separates a considerable part from one piece of land and joins it to another, but in such manner that it can still be identified, the property of the soil so removed naturally continues vested in its former owner."30 143 U.S. at 366, 12 S.Ct. at 398.
143 U.S. at 361, 12 S.Ct. at 397 (emphasis added).
This court applied the same rationale in Uhlhorn v. U. S. Gypsum Co., 366 F.2d 211 (8th Cir. 1966), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 1026, 87 S.Ct. 753, 17 L.Ed.2d 674 (1967), where the end of a meander bend in the Mississippi River gradually became separated from the mainland area by a small channel. During a flood in 1938 the subsidiary channel was scoured out making it the main navigational channel following the flood. Relying upon Nebraska v. Iowa, this court, through Judges Vogel, Van Oosterhout and Mehaffy, held that, despite the fact that the bar separating the old and new channel was as much as four feet under water when the change occurred, the change was avulsive.32 Id. at 219-20. The court observed:
In Bonelli Cattle Co. v. Arizona, 414 U.S. 313, 327, 94 S.Ct. 517, 38 L.Ed.2d 526 (1973), overruled on other grounds, Oregon ex rel. State Land Board v. Corvallis Sand & Gravel Co., 429 U.S. 363, 97 S.Ct. 582, 50 L.Ed.2d 550 (1977), the Supreme Court explained:
The basic finding essential to the defendants' case is the trial court's statement that "the original Omaha Indian reservation land within the 1867 Barrett Survey has subsequently been washed away by the Missouri River . . . and that at the same time new land was added to the Iowa riparian land . . . by the gradual process of deposition within the Blackbird Bend area . . . ." 433 F.Supp. at 88. In reviewing this finding our task is not made easier by the district court's verbatim adoption of the defendants' analysis of the evidence and proposed findings of fact including the defendants' credibility assessments of the witnesses.38 We hold the trial court's conclusion to be clearly erroneous and not supported by substantial evidence.
The court concluded on the basis of this evidence that the meander lobe was eroded away as the channel moved over the area where the lobe had existed. Thus, the court ruled that the shift in the course of the river was a consequence of progressive scour and deposition, that is by accretion. 433 F.Supp. at 77-78.
The trial court also found that the land which had previously occupied the area shown as bar C on the 1879 map had been completely eroded away and that bar C had formed thereafter as a middle bar as the thalweg moved to the west. The court observed: "If bar 'C' were land-in-place which had existed prior to 1879, it would have supported the growth of cottonwoods or other vegetation more substantial than willows by 1890."43 433 F.Supp. at 77. Although it is possible that the land represented by bar C may have completely eroded, it is entirely speculative to say that that is what occurred. The record also supports the possibility that bar C, located on the eastern end of the lobe, was the same surface area described by Barrett in his notes and was not built up by accretive deposits. The record is insufficient to prove what actually occurred.
There exists another basic reason why we regard the evidence of the defendants as insubstantial. The opinion of the defendants' experts45 that no identifiable land remained in place after the movement of the river sometime between 1875 and 1879 is essentially based upon inferences drawn from the 1879 map admittedly prepared in a 10-day period during the June rise of the Missouri River when the river was as much as five feet above its ordinary high water level. At the time the river was shown to be nearly 10,000 feet wide, whereas in 1875 the bed had been only approximately 800 feet across. Soundings taken at that time demonstrate that a substantial land area was immediately below the surface of the flood water. The defendants do not contend that the river bed permanently expanded to 10,000 feet as shown in 1879; it obviously would be much narrower upon subsidence. See, e. g., the 1890 Missouri River Commission Map, set out as Plate V, infra, in which the river is shown to be no more than 3,500 feet wide. The existence or nonexistence of identifiable land in place could not have been accurately assessed at a time when the river's flow was abnormally high during floods which completely inundated the adjacent land. Thus, any inferences drawn from the alleged land forms exhibited on the 1879 map appear to be highly conjectural. Substantial evidence cannot be based upon an inference drawn from facts which are uncertain or speculative and which raise only a conjecture or possibility.46 See Polk v. Ford Motor Co., 529 F.2d 259, 271 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 426 U.S. 907, 96 S.Ct. 2229, 48 L.Ed.2d 832 (1976); Wilson v. Volkswagen of America, Inc., 561 F.2d 494, 517 n. 65 (4th Cir. 1977); Padgett v. Buxton-Smith Mercantile Co., 262 F.2d 39, 41 (10th Cir. 1958); Gilbert v. Gulf Oil Corp., 175 F.2d 705, 709 (4th Cir. 1949).47 As this court indicated in Uhlhorn v. U. S. Gypsum Co., 366 F.2d at 219-20, if land over which a channel changes during abnormal high water periods, inundating all intervening land masses, is identifiable as the same land mass upon subsidence of the high water, the boundary does not change even though the land's surface may be somewhat eroded.
The evidence further reflects that Dr. John F. Kennedy testified that, as the thalweg shifted to the west, the low energy level of the river in the former channel created by the movement would result in deposition there. The defendants conclude from this that the shift in the river was "a consequence of progressive scour and deposition." The testimony of defendants' expert, Dr. Kennedy, showed, however, that the shift of the thalweg is often the responsible agent for the "subsequent diminished sediment transport capacity of the water." Thus, the testimony is inconclusive as to whether the remnant channel was formed by accretion or avulsion since a remnant chute might also have been formed after the thalweg suddenly and perceptibly moved. In the latter case the deposition forming the remnant channel would be the effect of the low river energy in the area brought about by the sudden avulsive shift of the thalweg rather than a consequence of accretion. As the Supreme Court observed in Arkansas v. Tennessee, 246 U.S. at 175, 38 S.Ct. at 305,
The trial court felt these facts "simply (show) the normal and logical progression of the accretion which was shown to be forming in 1879 . . . ." 433 F.Supp. at 79. There exists no factual predicate whatsoever to support this conclusion.59
433 F.Supp. at 85.
Very few facts relating to the actual river movement in the period between 1912 and 1923 are proven on the record. First, it is clear that the thalweg had moved substantially in a relatively short period of time; perhaps as few as three years,64 but no more than 11 years. Second, as the trial court found, substantial high water periods occurred in 1905, 1906, 1912, 1913, 1915, 1916 and 1920. 433 F.Supp. at 83. Third, the angle of approach of the river had changed subjecting the adjacent land in place to at least surface erosion. Furthermore, substantial erosion was undeniably occurring along the Nebraska shore.65 Finally, it is beyond dispute that remnant channel-like formations may be identified by soil samples and aerial photographs. These established facts do not prove that either accretion or avulsion caused the river's movement; the issue remains whether they may form a sufficient factual predicate for defendants' witnesses to conclude that the marked change of the thalweg was a gradual one directly caused by erosion and imperceptible deposition to the Iowa land. We hold the evidence too conjectural and the ultimate conclusion reached too speculative to sustain the defendants' burden of proof under § 194.
While Indians have the right of use and occupancy to tribal lands, the United States holds the land as a trustee for the benefit of the Indians. See Morrison v. Work, 266 U.S. 481, 485, 45 S.Ct. 149, 69 L.Ed. 394 (1925). See also Choate v. Trapp, 224 U.S. 665, 678, 32 S.Ct. 565, 56 L.Ed. 941 (1912); United States v. Rickert, 188 U.S. 432, 442-43, 23 S.Ct. 478, 47 L.Ed. 532 (1903). F. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law 94-95 (AMS Press ed. 1972)
United States v. Wilson, 433 F.Supp. 67, 69 (N.D.Iowa 1977).
The United States Supreme Court adopted the thalweg principle as the standard rule for establishing interstate boundaries in Iowa v. Illinois, 147 U.S. 1, 10, 13 S.Ct. 239, 37 L.Ed. 55 (1893). Later, in Minnesota v. Wisconsin, 252 U.S. 273, 40 S.Ct. 313, 64 L.Ed. 558 (1920), the Court explained the purpose of the rule.
Id. at 282, 40 S.Ct. at 319.
See also New Jersey v. Delaware, 291 U.S. 361, 381, 54 S.Ct. 407, 78 L.Ed. 847 (1934); Louisiana v. Mississippi, 202 U.S. 1, 49, 26 S.Ct. 408, 50 L.Ed. 913 (1906); Uhlhorn v. U.S. Gypsum Co., 366 F.2d 211, 215 (8th Cir. 1966); Whiteside v. Norton, 205 F. 5, 9 (8th Cir. 1913); 1 C. Hyde, International Law § 138 (2d rev. ed. 1951); 8 Op. Att'y Gen. 175 (1856).
Although the exact words used in acts of Congress defining the boundaries of a state may vary (for example, "middle of the river," "middle of the main channel," "mid-channel" or "middle thread of the channel") the Supreme Court has presumed that since "(i)t is the free navigation of the river . . . that States demand shall be secured to them", Iowa v. Illinois, supra, 147 U.S. at 13, 13 S.Ct. at 243, quoting Buttenuth v. St. Louis Bridge Co., 123 Ill. 535, 17 N.E. 439 (1888), in the absence of a contrary agreement, the middle of the main channel, the thalweg, establishes the interstate boundary. Iowa v. Illinois, supra, 147 U.S. at 13, 13 S.Ct. 239
See also Illinois v. City of Milwaukee, 406 U.S. 91, 105-06, 92 S.Ct. 1385, 31 L.Ed.2d 712 (1972); Arkansas v. Texas, 346 U.S. 368, 372-73, 74 S.Ct. 109, 98 L.Ed. 80 (1953) (Jackson, J., dissenting); Hinderlider v. La Plata River & Cherry Creek Ditch Co., 304 U.S. 92, 110, 58 S.Ct. 803, 82 L.Ed. 1202 (1938); Note, The Federal Common Law, 82 Harv.L.Rev. 1512, 1520 (1969)
The compact provided for the cession of land previously lying within the boundaries of one state to the state within which it was located following the establishment of the permanent boundary. Titles, mortgages, and other liens good in the ceding state must be recognized as valid in the receiving state. Iowa Code 1971, p. lxiv; 1943 Iowa Acts ch. 306, §§ 2-3; 1943 Nebraska Laws ch. 130, §§ 2-3. See also Nebraska v. Iowa, 406 U.S. 117, 122, 92 S.Ct. 1379, 31 L.Ed.2d 733 (1972)
See generally United States v. Little Lake Misere Land Co., 412 U.S. 580, 93 S.Ct. 2389, 37 L.Ed.2d 187 (1973)
In the early case of Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515, 556-57, 8 L.Ed. 483 (1832), Chief Justice Marshall observed:
United States v. 7,405.3 Acres of Land, 97 F.2d 417, 422 (4th Cir. 1938) (citations omitted). See also United States v. Candelaria, 271 U.S. 432, 440-42, 46 S.Ct. 561, 70 L.Ed. 1023 (1926); United States v. Minnesota, 270 U.S. 181, 196, 46 S.Ct. 298, 70 L.Ed. 539 (1926); United States v. Schwarz, 460 F.2d 1365, 1371-72 (7th Cir. 1972); United States v. Ahtanum Irrigation Dist., 236 F.2d 321 (9th Cir. 1956), cert. denied, 352 U.S. 988, 77 S.Ct. 386, 1 L.Ed.2d 367 (1957); Schaghticoke Tribe of Indians v. Kent School Corp., 423 F.Supp. 780, 784-85 (D.Conn.1976).
See also United States v. Forness, 125 F.2d 928, 932 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 316 U.S. 694, 62 S.Ct. 1293, 86 L.Ed. 1764 (1942); Schaghticoke Tribe of Indians v. Kent School Corp., supra at 783-84; Narragansett Tribe of Indians v. Southern Rhode Island Land Dev. Corp., 418 F.Supp. 798, 804 (D.R.I.1976)
The defendants question the constitutionality of 25 U.S.C. § 194. In discussing the validity of laws granting special treatment to Indians the Supreme Court emphasized in Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535, 554-55, 94 S.Ct. 2474, 2485, 41 L.Ed.2d 290 (1974), that:
See also Moe v. Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes, 425 U.S. 463, 479-80, 96 S.Ct. 1634, 48 L.Ed.2d 96 (1976); Fisher v. District Court, 424 U.S. 382, 390-91, 96 S.Ct. 943, 47 L.Ed.2d 106 (1976). Cf. McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm'n, 411 U.S. 164, 93 S.Ct. 1257, 36 L.Ed.2d 129 (1973); Williams v. Lee, 358 U.S. 217, 79 S.Ct. 269, 3 L.Ed.2d 251 (1959); Simmons v. Eagle Seelatsee, 244 F.Supp. 808 (E.D.Wash.1965), aff'd, 384 U.S. 209, 86 S.Ct. 1459, 16 L.Ed.2d 480 (1966).
Two cases have cited § 194, United States v. Sands, 94 F.2d 156 (10th Cir. 1938), and Felix v. Patrick, 36 F. 457 (C.C.D.Neb.1888), aff'd, 145 U.S. 317, 12 S.Ct. 862, 36 L.Ed. 719 (1892), but neither case expounds upon the effect the section should be given
Adoption of findings proposed by the successful litigant will be upheld where supported by substantial evidence and not otherwise clearly erroneous. However, in the present case the entire opinion of the trial court relating to the evidence and findings of fact is essentially a memorandum written by the defendants. Under the circumstances we feel compelled to repeat the admonition of the United States Supreme Court in United States v. El Paso Natural Gas Co., 376 U.S. 651, 656-57, 84 S.Ct. 1044, 1047, 12 L.Ed.2d 12 (1964):
Under Iowa law there is a common law presumption in favor of a finding of accretion. Kitteridge v. Ritter, 172 Iowa 55, 151 N.W. 1097 (1915). No such presumption exists under Nebraska law. See Jones v. Schmidt, 170 Neb. 351, 102 N.W.2d 640 (1960). Whether a presumption of accretion exists under federal law is uncertain; Mr. Justice Douglas alludes to such a presumption in his dissent in Mississippi v. Arkansas, 415 U.S. 289, 295-96, 94 S.Ct. 1046, 39 L.Ed.2d 333 (1974) (Douglas, J., dissenting). Cf. Nebraska v. Iowa, 143 U.S. 359, 369, 12 S.Ct. 396, 36 L.Ed. 186 (1892)
The existence of a presumption of accretion, however, does not affect the outcome here. Under the Federal Rules of Evidence a presumption loses its vitality once sufficient evidence on a disputed issue has been presented to permit a fact finder to act upon it. See Fed.R.Evid. 301; Louisell, Construing Rule 301: Instructing the Jury on Presumptions in Civil Actions and Proceedings, 63 Va.L.Rev. 281, 285 (1977); Sperberg v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 519 F.2d 708, 713 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 987, 96 S.Ct. 395, 46 L.Ed.2d 303 (1975); 1 J. Weinstein & M. Berger, Weinstein's Evidence P 301(02), at 301-28 (1976); McCormick's Handbook of the Law of Evidence Ch. 36, § 345 (2d ed. E. Cleary ed. 1972). The Tribe having presented substantial conflicting evidence on the issue of accretion, any presumption of accretion disappeared and had no further effect on their case.
James, Burdens of Proof, 47 Va.L.Rev. 51 (1961).
was based on the proposition that the "imperceptible nature of the acquisition" is "too minute and valueless to appear worthy of legal dispute or separate ownership." Hall, Rights of the Crown in the Sea-Shore, in S. Moore, A History of the Foreshore 793 (1888). See also 1 G. Baker, Halleck's International Law ch. VI, at § 25 (1908); 8 Op.Att'y Gen. 175, 177-78 (1856). Imperceptibility, in the sense that "though the witnesses may see from time to time that progress has been made, they could not perceive it while the process was going on," St. Clair v. Lovingston, 90 U.S. (23 Wall.) 46, 68, 23 L.Ed. 59 (1874), is the accepted test for accretion today. See, e. g., Littlefield v. Nelson, 246 F.2d 956, 958 (10th Cir. 1957); United States v. Commodore Club, Inc., 418 F.Supp. 311, 322 (E.D.Mich.1976); Schafer v. Schnabel, 494 P.2d 802, 807 n. 19 (Alaska 1972).
St. Louis v. Rutz, 138 U.S. 226, 231, 11 S.Ct. 337, 339, 34 L.Ed. 941 (1891).
Nebraska v. Iowa, 143 U.S. at 370, 12 S.Ct. at 400.
Several other decisions have also recognized that the submergence of land around or over which a channel shifts does not prevent a finding of avulsion. See, e. g., Widdicombe v. Rosemiller, 118 F. 295, 299 (C.C.W.D.Mo.1902); Fowler v. Wood, 73 Kan. 511, 85 P. 763, 768 (1906); Nix v. Dickerson, 81 Miss. 632, 33 So. 490 (1903). Cf. Mulry v. Norton, 100 N.Y. 424, 3 N.E. 581 (1885)
See also City of Lawrence v. McGrew, 211 Kan. 842, 508 P.2d 930, 932 (1973); Wood v. McAlpine, 85 Kan. 657, 118 P. 1060 (1911); Fowler v. Wood, 73 Kan. 511, 85 P. 763 (1906); Sharp v. Learned, 195 Miss. 201, 14 So.2d 218, 220 (1943); Bode v. Rollwitz, 60 Mont. 481, 199 P. 688 (1921); Nolte v. Sturgeon, 376 P.2d 616, 619-21 (Okl.1962); Buchheit v. Glasco, 361 P.2d 838, 841 (Okl.1961); Harper v. Holston, 119 Wash. 436, 205 P. 1062, 1064 (1922). Cf. Coastal Indus. Water Auth. v. York, 532 S.W.2d 949, 952 (Tex.1976); Jourdan v. Abbott Constr. Co., 464 P.2d 311, 314 n. 3 (Wyo.1970).
See also Washington v. Oregon, 211 U.S. 127, 134-36, 29 S.Ct. 47, 53 L.Ed. 118 (1908); Missouri v. Kentucky, 78 U.S. (11 Wall.) 395, 403-11, 20 L.Ed. 116 (1870); Commissioners of Land Office v. United States, 270 F. 110, 113-14 (8th Cir. 1920), appeal dismissed, 260 U.S. 753, 43 S.Ct. 14, 67 L.Ed. 497 (1922); State v. Ecklund, 147 Neb. 508, 23 N.W.2d 782, 789-90 (1946).
143 U.S. at 369, 12 S.Ct. at 399.
Cf. St. Louis v. Rutz, 138 U.S. at 249-51, 11 S.Ct. 337.
The trial court did, however, express a caveat near the end of its opinion, that "certain findings of fact, even if agreed upon, would not lead in the minds of all parties concerned to a definite legal conclusion; i. e. that either an avulsion or an accretion took place at key times in history at particular places on the Missouri River." 433 F.Supp. at 89. The district court nonetheless concluded that it was "convinced that one particular set of conclusions can be squared with the evidence far better than other proposed conclusions." Id. Notwithstanding its rejection of the Tribe's or the government's broader approach to the doctrine of avulsion, the court conceded that it was "apparent that the movements of the Missouri River have not been so clean and precise that they easily fall into the legal categories conveyed by the terms 'accretion' and 'avulsion.' " Id
See Galloway v. United States, 319 U.S. 372, 386-87, 63 S.Ct. 1077, 87 L.Ed. 1458 (1943). Raymond L. Huber, one of defendants' witnesses, conceded that, given the factual basis available to him, he was only able to give an "educated guess" as to what caused the river to move between 1875 and 1879
Plaintiffs question whether the trial court's judgment was final since it lacked certification under Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(b). The claims here on appeal were severed from claims to land outside the Barrett Survey, asserted in C-75-4067, by order of Judge McManus. The severed claims in C-75-4067 had been previously joined with quiet title actions pertaining only to the 2,900 acres of land within the Barrett Survey filed by the United States in C-75-4024 and by the Tribe in C-75-4026 which are on appeal here. Thus, the district court settled all of the questions of ownership involving the lands within the Omaha Indian Tribe's original 1854 reservation boundaries. Under the circumstances we view the severed claim in C-75-4067 as a wholly separate action which had been joined with the quiet title suits so that the judgment entered by the district court resolved the entire controversy then before it. Rule 54(b) therefore, has no application since all, not "fewer than all of the claims," before the trial court were resolved by its judgment