Opinion ID: 1145227
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: cross-appeal as to fifth, sixth, seventh and ninth claims for relief

Text: The plaintiffs claim that the superior court should have granted summary judgment in their favor on their fifth, sixth, seventh and ninth claims for relief. The court made no ruling as to these claims. We review them in accordance with the principle that any ground may be urged on appeal to support a judgment even if it was not accepted by the court in rendering judgment. Moore v. State, 553 P.2d 8, 21 (Alaska 1976); Ransom v. Haner, 362 P.2d 282, 285 (Alaska 1961). The fifth and sixth claims are similar because to prevail, a property owner [18] must establish status as a subsequent innocent purchaser ... in good faith for a valuable consideration as that term is used in AS 34.15.290. An innocent purchaser must lack actual or constructive knowledge of the conflicting deed or encumbrance that the purchaser seeks to avoid. Sabo v. Horvath, 559 P.2d 1038, 1043 (Alaska 1976). Sabo held that as between two grantees, a prepatent grantee's deed that was recorded before the patent was issued is a wild deed and does not give constructive notice to a post-patent grantee who duly records. Id. at 1044. The question here is whether public land orders, which appear in the Federal Register, impart constructive notice, thus preventing the property owner from claiming innocent purchaser status. We have in part IV of this opinion re-affirmed the holding of Hahn v. Alaska Title Guarantee Co., 557 P.2d 143 (Alaska 1976) that publication of a land order in the Federal Register is constructive notice of the order as that term is used in a title insurance policy. That holding is controlling here. The distinction between Sabo and this appeal is that Sabo concerns private deeds and this appeal involves a conflict between a government regulation and a patent. Regulations published in the Federal Register take on the character of law. Farmer v. Philadelphia Electric Co., 329 F.2d 3, 7 (3d Cir.1964); United States v. Messer Oil Corp., 391 F. Supp. 557, 561-62 (W.D.Pa. 1975). All persons are presumed to know the contents of the law. See Ferrell v. Baxter, 484 P.2d 250, 265 (Alaska 1971). In United States v. Messer Oil Corp ., the district court indicated that regulations published in the Federal Register were sufficient notice to allow conviction of a criminal violation. 391 F. Supp. at 562. If Federal Register notice is sufficient for this purpose, it is sufficient notice to a landowner regarding easements that the federal government has reserved across his land. Thus, the publication of the land orders in the Federal Register imparted constructive notice and served to preclude subsequent innocent purchaser status. In the seventh claim, plaintiffs contend that the State is estopped from claiming any easements under the orders here involved. The State responds that constructive notice defeats the estoppel claim. Estoppel requires the assertion of a position by conduct or word, reasonable reliance thereon by another party, and resulting prejudice. Jamison v. Consolidated Utilities, Inc., 576 P.2d 97, 102 (Alaska 1978) (footnote omitted). Plaintiffs claim that the State has asserted by conduct that it claims no easements by allowing the owners to develop their property inconsistently with the easements, and by not recording the land orders. They assert that reasonable reliance on that assertion has taken place. Because we have already found that publication of the land orders imparts constructive notice of the easements which they create, that notice makes plaintiffs' reliance unreasonable. Thus, the estoppel claim lacks merit. The ninth claim of plaintiffs is based on the fact that the property owners' patents involved here did not expressly refer to any land order easements. Because of this the plaintiffs contend that the property conveyed was conveyed free from such easements. They argue further that as a result suit was required to be brought against the property owners to vacate the patents, and that the time for such a suit is, in all cases now before us, barred by the six year statute of limitations contained in 43 U.S.C. § 1166. [19] The premise of this argument is that a patent which does not say that it is issued subject to a public easement operates to transfer the property free from the easement. We rejected this premise in Green. We held there that an unexpressed DO 2665 easement was effective. Green, 586 P.2d at 603. Similarly, in Girves v. Kenai Peninsula Borough, 536 P.2d 1221 (Alaska 1975), we affirmed a trial court ruling that a right-of-way not expressed in a patent was effective: At the outset Girves notes that neither her Notice of Allowance, nor her patent contained any express reservation of rights-of-way in favor of any public body. However, the absence of an express reservation of easement does not preclude the borough from showing that a right-of-way was established prior to the issuance of these documents. Id. at 1224 (footnote omitted). We cited as authority for that statement State v. Crawford, 7 Ariz. App. 551, 441 P.2d 586 (1968). That case aptly states: [I]t is also clear from cases decided under 43 U.S.C. § 932 that a subsequent patentee takes subject to previous right-of-ways [sic] established under the grant contained in that federal statute [Citations omitted.] No contrary authority has come to our attention... . The silence of the patents does not preclude the State from showing the full extent of its right-of-way established prior to the time when the patents were issued to plaintiff's predecessors. Id. at 590. The above and other authorities [20] establish that, by operation of law, land conveyed by the United States is taken subject to previously established rights-of-way where the instrument of conveyance is silent as to the existence of such rights-of-way. No suit to vacate or annul a patent in order to establish a previously existing right-of-way is necessary because the patent contains an implied-by-law condition that it is subject to such a right-of-way. [21] Thus the statute of limitations expressed by 43 U.S.C. § 1166 does not apply.