Opinion ID: 1428788
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: A Declaratory Judgment Action Interpreting the Provisions of Section 6(i) May be Maintained.

Text: There has been much litigation concerning the meaning and scope of various statehood act land grants and their restrictions. [10] There have been frequent questions of ownership of the granted lands as between private or governmental contestants. [11] Much of this litigation has occurred in the state courts. The question presented in this case is whether Congress intended to preclude all litigation concerning the meaning of section 6(i) by enacting the proviso which reads: That any lands or minerals hereafter disposed of contrary to the provisions of this section shall be forfeited to the United States by appropriate proceedings instituted by the Attorney General for that purpose in the United States District Court for the District of Alaska. In our view, this question must be answered in the negative. It is clear that Congress intended that only the U.S. Attorney General could bring forfeiture proceedings and that such proceedings could only be brought in the United States District Court for the District of Alaska. No inference can be drawn, however, from either the context or the history of the Statehood Act that forfeiture proceedings were meant to be the only means by which a judicial interpretation of the meaning of section 6(i) could be obtained. The sole reference to the land grant forfeiture provision which we have found in the legislative history appears in the Senate Report accompanying a 1954 bill providing for the admission of Alaska into the Union, S. 50, 83d Cong., 2d Sess. (1954): The Attorney General is authorized to take appropriate proceedings for forfeiture of any of the lands granted to the State which are disposed of contrary to these restrictions. In making the above provision, the committee has followed the practice prevalent in a number of mining States  a practice that has stood the test of time and experience. S.Rep. No. 1028, 83d Cong., 2d Sess. 32 (1954). This reference is to the forfeiture clause of the Act of January 25, 1927 (commonly called the School Lands Act of 1927, 44 Stat. 1026, codified at 43 U.S.C. § 870(b) (1982)), which extended to public land states grants of certain numbered school sections which were mineral in character. [12] This clause has not prevented judicial interpretation of the School Lands Act in nonforfeiture proceedings. [13] We hold that the identical language in section 6(i) has a similar, non-preclusive effect. It would be unusual in the extreme if a state court could not construe the meaning of its state's Statehood Act. In the absence of any indication that Congress intended to bar our state courts from interpreting section 6(i), we conclude that appellants' declaratory judgment action seeking an interpretation of section 6(i) may be maintained.