Opinion ID: 1219144
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Dismissal of the Land Grant Claims

Text: The trial court granted the objectors' motions for partial summary judgment dismissing AWDI's claims of rights to ground water based on Spanish and Mexican law as recognized and affirmed by the United States or, in the alternative, on an absolute grant of title by the United States. [9] These claims, in essence, are that by reason of the manner in which AWDI's predecessor obtained title to Baca Grant No. 4, all rights to underground water, whether tributary or not, underlying that tract were acquired by the original grantee and were later conveyed to AWDI. Standards governing appropriateness of summary judgment are well settled. Where there is no genuine issue of any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, summary judgment is warranted. C.R.C.P. 56; Greenberg v. Perkins, 845 P.2d 530, 531 (Colo.1993); Churchey v. Adolph Coors Co., 759 P.2d 1336, 1339-40 (Colo.1988); Pueblo W. Metro. Dist. v. S.E. Colo. Water Cons. Dist., 689 P.2d 594, 600 (Colo.1984). It is the burden of the moving party to demonstrate the absence of a triable factual issue, and any doubts as to the existence of such an issue must be resolved against that party. Greenberg, 845 P.2d at 531; Elm Distrib., Inc. v. Tri-Centennial Corp., 768 P.2d 215, 218 (Colo.1989). Although the party resisting summary judgment is entitled to the benefit of all favorable inferences that may be drawn from the facts presented, the moving party's request must be granted where the facts are undisputed and the opposing party cannot prevail as a matter of law. Greenberg, 845 P.2d at 531; see Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Colo. v. Sharp, 741 P.2d 714, 719 (Colo.1987). Applying these principles to the present case, we conclude that the record demonstrates that there is no genuine issue of material fact. The facts concerning the manner in which title passed into private ownership are undisputed. It is only the legal effect of the relevant events and documents that is at issue. Our task, therefore, is to determine whether the record supports the entry of partial summary judgment in favor of the objectors as a matter of law. We begin by presenting the salient facts that formed the basis of the trial court's decision.
In 1821, Luis Maria Cabeza de Baca, on behalf of himself and a number of his male children, petitioned Mexican governmental authorities for the grant of a tract of land containing nearly 500,000 acres [10] and known as the Vegas Grandes in the vicinity of the present day city of Las Vegas, New Mexico. H.R.Exec.Doc. No. 14, 36th Cong., 1st Sess. at 3 (1860) (hereinafter, H.R.Exec.Doc. No. 14). The tract was granted to Baca, [11] who settled on the land, remained for some time, and then left. See id. at 3-4. In 1835, certain other persons petitioned Mexican governmental authorities for the same land, and the petition was granted shortly thereafter with the proviso that persons who owned no land were to be permitted the same privilege of settling upon the grant as the persons who had petitioned. Id. at 44. Thereafter, several hundred families settled on the grant. See S.Rep. No. 228, 36th Cong., 1st Sess. at 3 (1860) (hereinafter, S.Rep. No. 228). In 1848, the United States and the Republic of Mexico entered into the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending hostilities between the two nations. Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement With The Republic of Mexico, Feb. 2, 1848, U.S.Mex., 9 Stat. 922. Under Article V of the treaty, Mexico ceded certain lands to the United States. 9 Stat. at 926-28. Included within them was the Vegas Grandes. Article VIII of the treaty required the United States to respect the property of Mexican citizens in the ceded lands. 9 Stat. at 929-30. [12] In order to establish a process for determination of land claims within the portion of the ceded lands relevant here, Congress passed the Act of July 22, 1854, Ch. 103, 10 Stat. 308 (1854). Pursuant to that act, the surveyor general of the Territory of New Mexico, within which the Vegas Grandes was situated, was given the duty to ascertain the origin, nature, character, and extent of all claims to lands under the laws, usages, and customs of Spain and Mexico and to report to Congress on the validity of such claims so that Congress could take such action thereon as may be deemed just and proper, with a view to confirm bona fide grants, and give full effect to the treaty of eighteen hundred and forty-eight between the United States and Mexico.... Id. § 8 at 309. On December 18, 1858, the surveyor general issued his report with respect to the claims of the heirs of Baca and of the town of Las Vegas to the Vegas Grandes. He concluded that the land embraced in either of the two grants is lawfully separated from the public domain and entirely beyond the disposal of the general government, and that in the absence of the one the other would be a good and valid grant; but as this office has no power to decide between conflicting parties, they are referred to the proper tribunals of the country for the adjudication of their respective claims, and the case is hereby respectfully referred to Congress through the proper channel for its action in the premises. H.R.Exec.Doc. No. 14 at 45. On May 19, 1860, the United States Senate Committee on Private Land Claims issued its report. It determined that the grant to Baca and his sons is a genuine and valid title, and that later, on a petition that represented the land to be public, the same land was granted to the predecessors of the town of Las Vegas, the persons presenting the petition were put in possession, and several hundred families are located on it. S.Rep. No. 228 at 3. The report noted that the surveyor general has recommended the confirmation of both these titles, leaving to the respective claimants the right of adjusting their conflicting claims in the courts. Id. at 3-4. The report observed, however, that the plunging of an entire settlement of families into litigation, at the imminent hazard of being turned out of their homes, or made to purchase a second time, from a private owner, lands for which they paid their government a full equivalent, in the labor, risk, and exposure by which they have converted a wilderness, surrounded by hostile savages, into a civilized and thriving settlement would be a disastrous result. Id. at 4. It then stated that an alternative involving little loss or cost to the government, id., was available: The claimants under the title to Baca,... represented by ... counsel, have expressed a willingness to waive their older title in favor of the settlers, if allowed to enter an equivalent quantity of land elsewhere within the Territory; and your committee cannot doubt that Congress will cheerfully accept the proposal, which, indeed, would undoubtedly have been acceded to by Mexico if the Territory had remained hers, and to whose rights and duties the United States have succeeded. Id. Congress acted by adopting the Act of June 21, 1860, Ch. 167, 12 Stat. 71 (1860), confirming, among others, claim number 20, which embraced the competing claims of the Baca heirs and the town of Las Vegas [13] to the Vegas Grandes, and making the following provision for the heirs of Baca: That it shall be lawful for the heirs of Luis Maria Baca, who make claim to the said tract of land as is claimed by the town of Las Begas [sic], to select instead of the land claimed by them, an equal quantity of vacant land, not mineral, in the Territory of New Mexico, to be located by them in square bodies, not exceeding five in number. And it shall be the duty of the surveyor-general of New Mexico, to make survey and location of the lands so selected by said heirs of Baca when thereunto required by them: Provided, however, That the right hereby granted to said heirs of Baca shall continue in force during three years from the passage of this act, and no longer. Act of June 21, 1860, § 6, 12 Stat. 71, 72 (1860). As the United States Supreme Court characterized it, Congress accommodated the dispute by a magnificent donation of lands to the heirs of Baca, and confirmed the original land to the town.... Maese v. Herman, 183 U.S. 572, 581, 22 S.Ct. 91, 95, 46 L.Ed. 335 (1902). [14] Such a determination and resolution of claims arising under a treaty was within the province of Congress. See United States v. Sandoval, 167 U.S. 278, 290, 17 S.Ct. 868, 872-73, 42 L.Ed. 168 (1897); Tameling v. U.S. Freehold & Emigration Co., 93 U.S. 644, 661, 23 L.Ed. 998 (1876); Sanchez v. Taylor, 377 F.2d 733, 737 (10th Cir.1967). What followed is detailed in Shaw v. Kellogg, 170 U.S. 312, 18 S.Ct. 632, 42 L.Ed. 1050 (1898). The surveyor general of the Territory of New Mexico was directed by proper federal authority to survey the Vegas Grandes to determine the area of the grant, whereupon the Baca heirs would have the right to select an equal quantity of vacant, nonmineral land in the Territory of New Mexico in square parcels not to exceed five. Id. at 314, 18 S.Ct. at 633. The Baca heirs selected the Baca Grant No. 4 as one of the parcels. Id. at 315, 18 S.Ct. at 633-34. Prior to such selection, the Territory of Colorado had been organized, Act of February 28, 1861, ch. 59, 12 Stat. 172 (1861), and the area embraced within Baca Grant No. 4 was included within the boundaries of the newly formed territory. See Shaw, 170 U.S. at 316, 18 S.Ct. at 634. Following investigation and survey, the Colorado surveyor general approved the field notes, survey, and plat of Baca Grant No. 4. See id. at 314-25, 18 S.Ct. at 633-38. Upon such approval, in 1864 title passed pursuant to the Act of June 21, 1860, without the necessity for issuance of a patent. Id. at 342-43, 18 S.Ct. at 644-45. AWDI must predicate its land grant claims on the foregoing facts. We now turn to an analysis of those claims.
AWDI first asserts that its title to Baca Grant No. 4 is derived from a Spanish or Mexican grant [15] and has all the attributes of such a grant, allegedly including transfer of all underground water, whether tributary or nontributary, underlying the granted lands. AWDI asserts that recognition of the Spanish or Mexican origin of its title is necessary in order to honor the requirement of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that the United States respect the property rights of Mexican citizens. [I]ndividual rights of property, in the territory acquired by the United States from Mexico, were not affected by the change of sovereignty and jurisdiction. Tameling, 93 U.S. at 661. The duty of providing the mode of securing them and fulfilling the obligations which the treaty of cession imposed, was within the appropriate province of the political department of the government. Id. Congress provided the necessary procedures by adopting the Act of July 22, 1854. Congress committed to the surveyor general of the Territory of New Mexico the duty of ascertaining the origin, nature, character and extent and determining the validity of all such claims in the Territory. Tameling, 93 U.S. at 662. The final action on each claim was reserved to Congress and not subject to judicial review. Id. The land comprising Baca Grant No. 4 was never in the private domain before it was granted to the Baca heirs pursuant to the Act of June 21, 1860. It was in territory under the sovereignty of Spain and then the Republic of Mexico prior to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Under that treaty the United States acquired sovereignty and the land became part of the public domain. [16] In order to resolve amicably the disputed claims to the Vegas Grandes, which was a completely different tract located in what is now the State of New Mexico, the Baca heirs, one of two sets of claimants to that latter tract, offered to waive their older title in favor of the other group of claimants if allowed to enter an equivalent quantity of land elsewhere within the Territory. S.Rep. No. 228 at 4. [17] The Act of June 21, 1860, followed, in which the United States Congress accepted the offer of the heirs of Baca and allowed them to select instead of the land claimed by them, an equal quantity of vacant land, [18] not mineral, in the Territory of New Mexico. The heirs of Baca did select such land, part of which was Baca Grant No. 4, and obtained title from the United States by following the procedures prescribed by the Act of June 21, 1860. The result was a grant of lands in which no private rights had ever been recognized under the laws of Spain or Mexico and a waiver of a claim to other lands under which such rights could have been asserted by the claimants. See Wise v. Watts, 239 F. 207, 225-27 (9th Cir.1917), cert. denied, 244 U.S. 661, 37 S.Ct. 745, 61 L.Ed. 1376 (1917) (discussing title to Baca Grant No. 3, obtained under the same circumstances as Baca Grant No. 4). The grant of lands, including Baca Grant No. 4, not subject to rights under the laws of Spain and Mexico in return for such waiver was not an abrogation of treaty rights as AWDI contends, but rather a resolution of competing claims well within the ambit of congressional authority. See Sandoval, 167 U.S. at 290, 17 S.Ct. at 873 (The mode in which private rights of property may be secured, and the obligations imposed upon the United States, by treaties, fulfilled, belongs to the political department of the government to provide.); Tameling, 93 U.S. at 661. The Act of June 21, 1860, itself contains no suggestion that the grant of Baca Grant No. 4 involved any intent to create rights other than those incident to any conveyance of lands from the public domain of the United States to a private citizen. Cf. United States v. Roselius, 56 U.S. (15 How.) 31, 34, 14 L.Ed. 587 (1853) (confirmation of doubtful claim by Congress on certain terms and acceptance of those terms by claimant adjusts the claim on the footing of compromise and forecloses judicial review). AWDI argues, however, that references by Congress to confirmation of the claim of the Baca heirs to the Vegas Grandes reflect an intent that the rights acquired by the Baca heirs in the substituted lands, including Baca Grant No. 4, were the same rights incident to their claim under Spanish or Mexican law to the Vegas Grandes. This argument is not well taken. The surveyor general of the United States did indeed recommend that the title of the Baca heirs to the Vegas Grandes be confirmed and the disputes between the two sets of claimants be resolved in court. Instead, however, pursuant to agreement, the Baca heirs waived that title in return for the right to obtain other lands from the United States. The surveyor general's recommended confirmation of the original title and Congress's ensuing confirmation of claim 20 both related to rights in the Vegas Grandes but suggested nothing about the nature of the title to be acquired from the United States by a compromise grant of other lands in that sovereign's public domain. [19] AWDI also relies on case authority to support its argument that title to the alternative selected lands does not lose its original character as derived under the laws of Spain or Mexico. AWDI refers us to Henshaw v. Bissell, 85 U.S. (18 Wall.) 255, 21 L.Ed. 835 Board of County Comm'rs of County of Pueblo v. Central Colo. Improvement Co., 2 Colo. 628 (1874) ( Nolan I ); rev'd by Central Colo. Improvement Co. v. Board of Comm'rs, 95 U.S. 259, 24 L.Ed. 495 (1877) ( Nolan II ). Henshaw referred to Mexican law in part to determine the better title under conflicting United States patents issued upon a confirmation of grants made by the Mexican government as floating grants within a general tract large enough to satisfy both. Nolan I and Nolan II establish that when a Mexican land grant is confirmed to less than all of the lands located within the boundaries of the original grant, title relates back to and is grounded upon the laws of Mexico. In the present case, the claim confirmed to the Baca heirs was their claim to the Vegas Grandes. The Baca heirs waived that claim and accepted a grant from the United States to public domain lands not within the boundaries of any Mexican land grant. Neither Henshaw nor the opinions in Nolan I and Nolan II speak to this issue. For the reasons previously expressed, we hold that title to the Baca Grant No. 4 did not derive from the Mexican government or its Spanish predecessor. [20]
AWDI asserts a supplemental or alternative claim to ownership of all ground water underlying Baca Grant No. 4 based on the language of the Act of June 21, 1860. As earlier discussed, section 3 of that Act confirmed certain private land claims in the Territory of New Mexico, including the competing claims of the Baca heirs and the Town of Las Vegas to the Vegas Grandes, as recommended for confirmation by the surveyor general. In section 4 of the Act, Congress provided [t]hat the foregoing confirmation shall only be construed as quit-claims or relinquishments, on the part of the United States, and shall not affect the adverse rights of any other person or persons whomsoever. AWDI relies on this language of quit claim or relinquishment as conveying to the Baca heirs all rights of the United States in the lands selected by them in return for waiver of their claim to the Vegas Grandes. Such rights, according to this argument, included all rights to water underlying Baca Grant No. 4. As earlier noted, however, the Act of June 21, 1860, did not confirm a claim of the Baca heirs to Baca Grant No. 4. They had no such claim. Instead, pursuant to section 6 of that Act and the legislation previously discussed, the Baca heirs were authorized to select alternative lands not within the boundary of the Vegas Grandes in return for waiver of their claim to the Vegas Grandes. Section 4 of the Act, quit claiming or relinquishing rights of the United States to confirmed claims, had no application to the substitute lands. AWDI's reliance on Henshaw v. Bissell, 85 U.S. (18 Wall.) 255, 21 L.Ed. 835 (1873), and language in Shaw v. Kellogg, 170 U.S. 312, 331, 18 S.Ct. 632, 640, 42 L.Ed. 1050 (1898), is misplaced. Those cases contain language supporting the proposition that confirmation of claims under the Act of June 21, 1860, effected relinquishment of all rights of the United States to the premises covered by the claims. This proposition, based on section 4 of the Act, has no application to the substitute lands in the public domain, including Baca Grant No. 4, selected by the Baca heirs in return for waiver of their claim to the Vegas Grandes, the tract to which their claim pertained. Principles of construction militate against AWDI's arguments as well. Land grants are construed favorably to the United States government, and nothing passes except what is conveyed in clear and explicit language. Watt v. Western Nuclear, Inc., 462 U.S. 36, 59, 103 S.Ct. 2218, 2231, 76 L.Ed.2d 400 (1983) (lands acquired under Stock Raising Homestead Act of 1916 do not include gravel deposits); Andrus v. Charlestone Stone Prod. Co., 436 U.S. 604, 617, 98 S.Ct. 2002, 2009-10, 56 L.Ed.2d 570 (1978) (water is not a valuable mineral subject to location under Federal Mining Law of 1872); United States v. Union Pac. R.R. Co., 353 U.S. 112, 116, 77 S.Ct. 685, 687, 1 L.Ed.2d 693 (1957) (right of way granted to railroad did not include mineral rights); Caldwell v. United States, 250 U.S. 14, 20-21, 39 S.Ct. 397, 398-99, 63 L.Ed. 816 (1919) (right granted by statute to railroad to take timber necessary for construction did not extend to tie slashtops of trees not usable for making ties). Any doubts are to be resolved in favor of the government and not against it, Western Nuclear, Inc., 462 U.S. at 59, 103 S.Ct. at 2231; Andrus, 436 U.S. at 617, 98 S.Ct. at 2009-10; United States v. Union Pac., 353 U.S. at 116, 77 S.Ct. at 687; Caldwell, 250 U.S. at 20-21, 39 S.Ct. at 398-99, as are any inferences, Caldwell, 250 U.S. at 20, 39 S.Ct. at 398. The rule of narrow construction of federal land grants has been applied with particular vigor with respect to water where determination that a grant carries rights to water would create inconsistencies with the water right system that has been based on local law and custom. See Andrus, 436 U.S. at 615-17, 98 S.Ct. at 2008-10. [21] Nothing in the Act of June 21, 1860, suggests that the land to be received by the Baca heirs by selection from the public domain in exchange for relinquishment of their claim under Spanish or Mexican law to the Vegas Grandes was to have any incidents peculiar to claims derived under the law of those sovereigns. The Act contains no mention whatsoever of rights to water underlying the lands to be selected. [22] There is no basis in the Act of June 21, 1860, to support a construction that the Baca heirs acquired any rights that would have been recognized under Spanish or Mexican law to substituted lands selected by them in return for waiver of their claim to the Vegas Grandes. [23] We hold that AWDI's argument that it acquired rights to water underlying Baca Grant No. 4 based on the terms of the Act of June 21, 1860, is not well founded.