Opinion ID: 891606
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: The Boundary Dispute

Text: {31} The Ranch's argument that the Heck Canyon Trail junction is on Ranch property depends on the testimony of Bill Harris, a surveyor hired as the Ranch's expert witness. In an evidentiary hearing that preceded the decision in District Court I, Harris testified that the actual location on the ground of the boundary between the Ranch and state trust lands is not where decades of state highway map makers, community members, area property owners, and various state agencies apparently thought it was. Rather, Mr. Harris testified that the boundary is situated some 700 feet southwest of where it appears on official state maps. {32} If it is true, as Harris testified and the Ranch argues, that the boundary has shifted, [2] two critical conclusions would follow. One is that the Road would likely fail to provide access to state trust lands, assuming that the State does not hold title to the Heck Canyon Trail. The other conclusion, entirely overlooked by the lower courts, is that the Ranch would hold title to the acreage in between the old and new locations of the boundary, which up to now had always been in the hands of the State, or which, at the least, had long been assumed to be in State possession. Even more significant to our analysis, the State would have lost title to this acreage without the Commissioner of Public Lands, other potential boundarymen, or other interested parties ever having been joined in this litigation. {33} For reasons that are not clear from the record, the State did not mount a vigorous challenge to the Harris testimony, either at trial or on appeal, though we note that the State did submit ample evidence at trial which contradicts Mr. Harris's testimony. For example, official state highway maps from 1942, 1949, 1958, and 1975, all show the Road actually crossing the boundary between the Ranch and state trust lands before splitting off on the Heck Canyon Trail. All of these maps show the junction with the Heck Canyon Trail situated on state land. An official state land status map from 1971 also shows the Road clearly crossing the boundary line in question. Most recently, a detailed map produced in 1999 by the GIS Bureau of the State Land Office shows clearly that the junction with the Heck Canyon Trail is on State trust land, not on Ranch property. {34} In its pleading before the trial court, the Ranch raised a Florida case, Gilman Paper Co. v. Newman, 398 So.2d 887, 888 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1981), and a Texas case, Waldrop v. Manning, 507 S.W.2d 626, 631 (Tex.Civ.App.1973), in support of the proposition that the State's maps are of insufficient scale to locate the boundary, and that they lack the evidentiary foundation that would be the predicate to their use as evidence of the surveyed boundary. Although we note that there is also contrary authority, see, e.g., Mosher v. Commonwealth, 90 Pa.Cmwlth. 126, 494 A.2d 56, 58 (1985), we take no position on whether the highway maps or state planning maps are adequate to make a final determination as to the boundary line. We merely note that had the boundary issue been fully litigated, the district court would have made specific conclusions about where the property boundary lies. It did not. {35} Though the Harris testimony, if believed, might lend substantial evidence to a judicial finding in support of the Ranch's position, the course of this appeal is not so straightforward. We emphasize that the first two courts to hear this caseDistrict Court I and Court of Appeals Inever expressly adopted the Harris testimony. Moreover, neither of these first two courts came to the conclusion that the boundary between the Ranch and the State was actually situated in a different place from where maps showed it be. In fact, these two courts, which fashioned the law of this case, made no mention of Harris or his testimony. {36} The Ranch appears to argue that by describing the Road as being wholly within Ranch property, the District Court I decision necessarily adopted and endorsed the Harris testimony. We disagree. District Court I never made any factual finding that the boundary between the Ranch and State trust lands had shifted, nor did it explicitly endorse the Harris testimony. In fact, District Court I never made any findings about the specific location of the boundary. {37} In its findings of fact and conclusions of law, the District Court I decision was at best ambiguous, and at worst outright self-contradictory as to whether the Road provides access to trust land by crossing the boundary between the Ranch and state land. The decision notes numerous times that the Road provides access, noting for example the State's purpose in seeking title in order to use the Road as access to the Heck Canyon Trail, and State trust land for hunters. Later, the court noted that until the Ranch's blockade, the Road was used continuously by hunters . . . to gain access to Heck Canyon and state trust lands. These assertions suggest the court recognized that the section of road in dispute crossed into state trust lands. {38} It is true that there are also descriptions that suggest, but do not unequivocally assert, that the Road does not cross into state trust land. Chief among these are the two words that undergird the Ranch's argument: wholly within. The court early in its decision described the Road as being wholly within the exterior boundaries of the UU Bar ranch. {39} Later in its discussion, District Court I modified the wholly within language to say entirely within, also adding to it in the following way: The Road, including its junction with the Heck Canyon Trail is located entirely within the external boundaries of the UU Bar Ranch. (Emphasis added.) By appearing to assert that the Heck Canyon Trail junction was on Ranch property, this language offers more support than the mere words wholly within for the Ranch's contention that the property boundary had shifted. {40} However, as we have noted, this conclusion would conflict with the court's earlier assertions that the Road provides access, and further is a major alteration from the wholly within language. At the very least, the court's apparent conclusions about the boundary line are inconsistent and self-contradictory. While we generally engage in a presumption of correctness, see Farmers, Inc. v. Dal Mach. & Fabricating, Inc., 111 N.M. 6, 8, 800 P.2d 1063, 1065 (1990), and we are deferential to facts found by the trial court, see Strata Prod. Co. v. Mercury Explor. Co., 121 N.M. 622, 627, 916 P.2d 822, 827 (1996), we cannot defer to findings when we cannot determine what they were. And while we will presume that trial courts do not make inconsistent findings, see Sanchez v. Saylor, 2000-NMCA-099, ¶ 23, 129 N.M. 742, 13 P.3d 960, where findings are plainly inconsistent, we are unable to arbitrarily choose one of those inconsistent conclusions. {41} We also note in passing that there is more than one credible reading of the words wholly within in this context. A road would be accurately described as existing wholly within someone's property if it went right to the border of that property and terminated there. The road in that case would still provide access to the neighboring property, because it would create a path right up to the border between the properties. {42} Here, there is sufficient conflict and ambiguity that we cannot tell what exactly District Court I concluded, if anything, regarding the boundary between the Ranch and state trust lands. It is not enough, given the high stakes here, to extrapolate, based on the trial court's conflicting language, that it made any factual findings about the precise location of the boundary much less findings that contradict long-lasting presumption and practice on the ground. There is good reason why District Court I's conclusions as to the location of the boundary appear so ambiguousthe issue was not properly litigated, and therefore could not have been actually decided. {43} Moreover, the District Court I decision rejected proposed findings of fact submitted by the Ranch that would have clearly endorsed the Harris testimony and relocated the boundary in the way the Ranch would prefer. The proposed findings, rejected by the court, were: In the vicinity of the southern terminus of the Road, the Maxwell Land Grant boundary line and thus the eastern boundary of the state trust lands lies approximately 700 feet to the west of the Road, i.e., the Road's junction with the Heck Canyon Trail lies entirely on the Ranch's fee property. At no point does the Road touch upon or cross the Maxwell Land Grant boundary. As a result, the Road would not provide complete access to the state trust lands; hunters and other persons using the Road would still have to cross ranch property to reach the state trust lands. (Emphasis added.) {44} Those words never appear in the District Court I decision. When a trial court rejects proposed findings of facts or conclusions of law, we assume that said facts were not supported by sufficient evidence. See Landskroner v. McClure, 107 N.M. 773, 775, 765 P.2d 189, 191 (1988); In re Guardianship of Ashleigh R., 2002-NMCA-103, ¶ 18, 132 N.M. 772, 55 P.3d 984. Accordingly, the district court rejected a description of the boundary line which is quite similar to the Court of Appeals II description, which concluded that the Road terminates inside Defendant's property. State ex rel. King, No. 26,194, slip op. at 5. The rejected findings of fact, if ever adopted by the district court, would have made this a boundary case, which it is not, and would have made clear to the State the precariousness of its focus on title to the Road when the real issue was the location of its boundary. That description would also have made clear to Court of Appeals I that title to the Road did not afford public access to the Heck Canyon Trail and state trust lands which, of course, is directly contrary to the manner in which the Court of Appeals I opinion described that very Road. {45} We acknowledge that the Ranch raised the boundary issue early in this litigation. The Ranch argued that the State had an obligation to clearly define the property to which it sought title, including a metes and bounds description. We observe that if the Ranch wanted to reestablish the boundary location, it should have asserted in some independent action that the boundary long assumed by the public and by state map makers was incorrect. See Velasquez v. Cox, 50 N.M. 338, 176 P.2d 909 (1946) (citing with approval an Eighth Circuit case, State of Iowa v. Carr, 191 F. 257, 258 (8th Cir.1911), for the proposition that the party challenging a long-accepted boundary bears the burden of proof). Such an action would have set in motion the joinder of interested parties. The Ranch opted instead for litigating the boundary dispute as an ancillary issue, without complicated joinder issues being addressed. There is no indication in the record that the Ranch ever filed an action to overturn the long-presumed boundary line. Although the boundary issue was raised early, until Court of Appeals II it was at most a sideshow, and a largely silent one at that, to the main stagethe quiet-title dispute. {46} Set against the considerable ambiguity of the district court's factual findings as to the location of the boundary, we have the Court of Appeals I opinion, which assumes that the road provides access to state trust lands. As we have already noted, Court of Appeals I appeared to believe it was granting title to a Road which provided access. Because Court of Appeals I was the first appellate court to pass on this case, it created the law of the case, see Van Orman, 80 N.M. at 120, 452 P.2d at 189. That means that later courts were bound to follow not only its mandate, but the meaning of the opinion. See id. at 119, 452 P.2d at 188; Hughes v. Hughes, 101 N.M. 74, 75, 678 P.2d 702, 703 (1984). {47} Instead, Court of Appeals II struck out on its own and reached contradictory conclusions. The opinion causes us grave concern for several reasons. First, the court largely based its decision on the ill-founded assumption that the district court apparently accepted Harris's testimony as credible and persuasive. State ex rel. King, No. 26,194, slip op. at 3. As we have already shown, it is anything but clear that the court fully accepted the Harris testimony. But the Court of Appeals II opinion took this misstep even further, asserting that unless the Harris testimony depends on a physical impossibility or is false, the Court was bound to accept the Ranch's argument. Id. This assertion might be true if it were clear the Harris testimony had been adopted, and that it constituted the basis for the lower court's conclusions. Since neither of these were true, the Court of Appeals was in no way bound by Harris's testimony. {48} In addition to the unwarranted adoption of the Harris testimony, the Court of Appeals II opinion is troubling because it raises serious unanswered legal questions. Upholding the Ranch's proposed boundary would amount to ceding significant public acreage to a private landowner by implication. At least one seemingly indispensable party, the State Land Office or the Commissioner of Public Lands, or possibly the State Game Commission, was never joined as a party to this litigation. As a matter of law, it would appear incontrovertible that the boundary line between the Ranch and the state lands could not have been reestablished without, at the very least, the presence in court of the state agencies which are the trustees of those very state lands. {49} It is not clear in the record precisely which state agency or agencies have authority over the trust lands in question. Generally, the Commissioner of Public Lands has authority over state trust lands, see NMSA 1978, §§ 19-1-1 to -2 (1912, as amended through 1989). However, there are indications in the record that the New Mexico Game Commission has held an easement in public trust for some of these lands. The State Game Commission was a party to this case from very early in the proceedings, but not in the capacity of title holder to the trust lands in question, and not for the purpose of determining a boundary. As we have already noted, because the boundary issue was insufficiently litigated, it is not clear in the record what state agencies might have a stake in the land in question. That is part of the problem. As the administrator of state trust lands, the Commissioner of Public Lands would likely have interests necessarily affected by a judicial determination to shift the state trust land boundary. We therefore note, without deciding the issue, that if the Ranch's preferred interpretation of the boundary location were given force by this Court, it would implicate our indispensable-party doctrine in a way that would likely require us to remand this litigation so that it would start over again from square one. See, e.g., Herrera v. Springer Corp., 85 N.M. 6, 7, 508 P.2d 1303, 1304 (Ct.App.) (holding that a court cannot proceed to judgment in the absence of an indispensable party), rev'd in part on other grounds, 85 N.M. 201, 510 P.2d 1072 (1973). Avoiding that drastic conclusion, and noting the uncertainty surrounding the lower courts' conclusions about the boundary's location, we instead conclude that the lower courts could not have intended to move the boundary line, not at least in the present litigation. Our conclusion that the boundary line has not shifted from its long-presumed location does not preclude further litigation as to where the boundary line actually lies. Rather, we merely conclude, on the facts before us, that the courts below could not have concluded that the boundary line shifted. {50} Among the other unanswered questions regarding a potential boundary dispute is whether adopting the Harris testimony would run afoul of our doctrine of boundary by acquiescence, and whether the decades of public traffic across the road would have established an easement by prescription. The easement by prescription argument was explicitly eliminated by the trial court early in the litigation, for reasons that are not entirely clear in the record. As for the doctrine of boundary by acquiescence, the facts of this case would appear to provide a classic example. Under the doctrine, propounded in detail in a case the state cited in its corrected proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law, a boundary can be established by long recognition of abutting landowners. Woodburn Bros. v. Grimes, 58 N.M. 717, 275 P.2d 850 (1954). The doctrine which is independent of the doctrine of adverse possession holds that where parties agree, even implicitly upon a boundary, that boundary may be established as a matter of law even if it is not accurate according to plats, surveys or other maps. See, e.g., Sanchez v. Scott, 85 N.M. 695, 516 P.2d 666 (1973); Gilman v. Powers, 83 N.M. 80, 488 P.2d 337 (1971); McBride v. Allison, 78 N.M. 84, 428 P.2d 623 (1967); Thomas v. Pigman, 77 N.M. 521, 424 P.2d 799 (1967); Sproles v. McDonald, 70 N.M. 168, 372 P.2d 122 (1962); Hobson v. Miller, 64 N.M. 215, 326 P.2d 1095 (1958); Murray Hotel Co. v. Golding, 54 N.M. 149, 216 P.2d 364 (1950); Velasquez, 50 N.M. 338, 176 P.2d 909; Rodriguez v. Ranch Co., 17 N.M. 246, 134 P. 228 (1912). {51} We conclude that the boundary line is not and, in fact, could not be where the Ranch now argues it is, at least not without further litigation with additional parties joined to ascertain the actual location of the boundary on the ground. This may help explain why the district court never expressly established a location for that boundary lineeither in accordance with the Harris testimony or as set forth historically in state maps and similar descriptions. The court may well have recognized the numerous hurdles and pitfalls that would necessarily confront such a move, and therefore left the actual location of the boundary ambiguous. {52} Perhaps recognizing its dilemma, the Ranch at oral argument took the position that it only intended to establish the boundary for the purposes of this litigation. The Court asked counsel for the Ranch: Who owns the property between the long-presumed boundary and the boundary as established by Harris? Ranch counsel replied, The Ranch does, for purposes of this litigation. In the Ranch's briefing before this Court, it advanced a related argument that the boundary is not contiguous with the boundary between the Ranch and state trust lands, but for present purposes, the land grant boundary and the boundary between Ranch and the trust lands will be treated as the same. {53} Purely as a matter of logic and common sense, neither of these arguments can stand. The Ranch cannot have it both ways. Either it argues that the boundary has shifted away from its long presumed location in accordance with the Harris testimony, therefore potentially setting in motion a transfer of real estate, or the boundary is where it has always been assumed to be. Boundaries do not shift for the purposes of litigation, then shift back again when the litigation is done. {54} Without the Harris testimony and a reestablished boundary location, this case reduces to what it has always been: a complaint to establish title to a Road that has always provided access to state lands. Put another way, until abandonment, the Road had always provided access to state trust lands. When the Ranch won on abandonment, it could deny access. When the Ranch lost on abandonment, then logically it would seem that the State would be returned to the status quo ante the same position it held before the Ranch blocked access. That status quo, replete with public access to state trust lands, would prevail unless and until the Ranch were to challenge the location of that boundary in some other litigation with all necessary parties present. {55} Court of Appeals I appeared to recognize the logic of this position that, once it decided the question of abandonment, access would follow. In the very text of its opinion, Court of Appeals I observed that the Road provides access to the White Peak area of state trust lands. State ex rel. Madrid, 2005-NMCA-079, ¶ 2, 137 N.M. 719, 114 P.3d 399. The Ranch does not appear to have challenged this and similar language providing access in the opinion while the Court of Appeals still had jurisdiction over the appeal, nor did it challenge the access language in its petition for a writ of certiorari to this Court following the Court of Appeals I opinion. The Ranch's motion for rehearing before the Court of Appeals focused on the issue of abandonment, further emphasizing that this case has always been about title and access, not about the location of the boundary. {56} While it may be a stretch to conclude that Court of Appeals I affirmatively held that the Road provided access to state trust lands, it is nonetheless clear what Court of Appeals I did not hold. It did not hold that the boundary line had shifted from its long-presumed location; it did not hold that the Road did not provide access to state trust lands. The evidence in the record as to the boundary line was unchanged from Court of Appeals I to Court of Appeals II. Court of Appeals I apparently assumed that the Road provided access, while Court of Appeals II based on the same recorddecided the opposite. Court of Appeals II made explicit conclusions which contradicted Court of Appeals I and which went beyond the scope of the findings made by either District Court I or District Court II. {57} This resembles a kind of photo negative of the typical law-of-the-case scenario, in that it is the absence of an affirmative legal conclusion which the later court violated, rather than the presence of one. If not a clear-cut law-of-the-case issue, it offers a helpful parallel. Court of Appeals II should have been guided more by what was clearly stated in Court of Appeals I, and less by what was never clearly stated in either district court decision on the questions of boundary and access.