Opinion ID: 170350
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Rebutting the presumption of acceptance and request for remand

Text: Fields insists he can rebut the presumption of acceptance with evidence of affirmative disavowals of territorial jurisdiction. He cites internal agency reports and letters written over the years taking the general position that federal territorial jurisdiction does not, or should not, extend to national forests. We agree with the government that such [e]vidence that Executive Branch employees expressed a preference for proprietary jurisdiction several decades ago [but after acquisition of the land here] is irrelevant to the analysis of the government's 1931 acceptance of concurrent legislative jurisdiction over the Winding Stair Campground. Aplee. Suppl. Br. at 19. The issue we must decide is whether, in 1931 when the land here was acquired, the United States affirmatively refused the cession of concurrent jurisdiction Oklahoma made in 1925 with respect to national forest acquisitions. None of the later materials Fields cites demonstrates such a refusal. Anticipating this point, Fields argues that it was not until 1940 (when Congress enacted 40 U.S.C § 255, requiring formal notice of acceptance of ceded jurisdiction), that there was any occasion to articulate the jurisdictional manner in which national forest lands were held by the United States. Aplt. Reply Br. at 14. We disagree. Given the presumption of acceptance, a pre-1940 acquisition of national forest land provided an essential occasion on which to articulate the mode of jurisdiction involved, i.e., to explicitly refuse the jurisdiction ceded by the state or accept it through silence. As a position of last resort, Fields requests a remand to pursue discovery if we remain[] unconvinced that the presumption of acceptance does not apply or has been rebutted. Id. at 17. This request misapprehends the nature of the matter. It is not a question of excavating yet more internal documents reflecting after-the-fact (and changeable) legal opinions or practical preferences of agency officials. The requisite explicit refusal of territorial jurisdiction over the lands acquired from Oklahoma in 1931 should be evident from the contemporaneous public record. We know of no such refusal, nor does Fields offer any indication that one exists. This is precisely the situation the presumption of acceptance was designed to address. That is, we need not be concerned that jurisdiction is fatally indeterminate on our present record (which would require a remand); given the presumption, territorial jurisdiction is established because there is no evidence affirmatively negating its acceptance. Under the circumstances, Fields is not entitled to a remand and we see no reason to grant one in our discretion.