Opinion ID: 769869
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Quiet Title Act

Text: 7 The plaintiffs' complaint alleged that the Forest Service lacks the authority to restrict the use of certain roads in the Atwood Ridge RNA and the Burke Branch RNA. According to the plaintiffs, these roads are subject to both public and private easements and rights-of-way that pre-date the creation of the Shawnee. The plaintiffs contend that because these easements and rights-of-way have been continually used and have not been vacated or abandoned, the right to control the use of the roads in the Atwood Ridge RNA and the Burke Branch RNA are not held by the Forest Service. In other words, the plaintiffs contend that the Forest Service cannot restrict the use of the roads in the Atwood Ridge and Burke Branch areas because they do not own the property rights necessary to make decisions concerning their incidents of use. 8 The district court did not reach the plaintiffs' constitutional claim on the merits, but rather concluded that it did not have subject matter jurisdiction over this claim because the plaintiffs' argument represented a clear challenge to the United States' ownership of the land in question. According to the district court, all such challenges must be brought pursuant to the QTA. Because the plaintiffs did not bring their claim under the QTA, but rather under the Constitution, the district court held that it could not consider the issue of title to the land. The district court further found unpersuasive the plaintiffs' attempt to structure their claim as a constitutional challenge to the federal government's regulatory authority, and not to its title. On appeal, the plaintiffs contend that this decision was erroneous and that the district court properly had subject matter jurisdiction over their constitutional challenge to the restrictions imposed by the Forest Service. 9 The QTA operates as a limited waiver of sovereign immunity in cases where a party seeks to adjudicate a title dispute to real property in which the United States claims an interest. Specifically, the Act provides that The United States may be named as a party defendant in a civil action under this section to adjudicate a disputed title to real property in which the United States claims an interest, other than a security interest or water rights. 28 U.S.C. sec. 2409a(a). In its decisions interpreting the QTA, the Supreme Court has made clear that, through its adoption of the Act, Congress intended . . . to provide the exclusive means by which adverse claimants could challenge the United States' title to real property. Block v. North Dakota, 461 U.S. 273, 286 (1983) (emphasis added). While the plaintiffs concede that the QTA is the exclusive vehicle for suits challenging the United States' title to real property in certain contexts, they contend that this exclusivity principle does not apply when the party bringing the suit is not an adverse claimant. 10 The plaintiffs contend that the adverse claimants language in the Supreme Court's Block opinion is an important limitation on the exclusivity of the QTA. The plaintiffs admit that the Act is the exclusive means by which a party claiming a property interest in land in which the United States also maintains an interest may challenge the United States' assertion of title. However, the plaintiffs argue that the QTA does not limit their ability to challenge the United States' regulatory authority by bringing suit pursuant to other statutes or the Constitution as long as they do not seek to quiet title in themselves. Under this theory, because the plaintiffs do not claim that they own the easements or rights-of-way over the roads in the Atwood Ridge RNA and the Burke Branch RNA, the plaintiffs' suit need not be brought pursuant to the QTA. 11 In support of this argument, the plaintiffs do not cite any case law specifically limiting the exclusivity of the QTA to suits in which the plaintiffs seek to quiet title in themselves. Instead, they rely on cases that have entertained challenges to the regulatory authority of the United States without addressing the QTA. See, e.g., Wilkensen v. Department of the Int., 634 F.Supp. 1265 (D. Colo. 1986); Stupak-Thrall v. Glickman, 988 F.Supp. 1055 (W.D. Mich. 1997). Although we recognize that these cases resolved title disputes similar to the one around which this case centers without reference to the QTA, it is significant that those cases give no indication that the QTA was ever raised as an issue. In circumstances where a court assumes jurisdiction without addressing a jurisdictional issue, that assumption of jurisdiction is of limited precedential value. See United States v. L.A. Tucker Truck Lines, Inc., 344 U.S. 33, 38 (1952) ([T]his Court is not bound by a prior exercise of jurisdiction in a case where it was not questioned and it was passed sub silento.). 12 Because we find the precedent cited by the plaintiffs to be of little value, the merits of their argument turn on the persuasiveness of their definition of adverse claimants. According to the plaintiffs, the plain meaning of adverse claimants does not include parties who, although challenging the federal government's right to regulate land, do not attempt to quiet title in themselves. Although we agree that the interpretation offered by the plaintiffs is a plausible one, we do not believe that the language of the Supreme Court's opinion in Block is as clear as the plaintiffs contend. It is true that the plaintiffs do not assert that they own the land, and in that sense they are not making a claim to title on behalf of themselves that is adverse to the government's asserted interest. However, the plaintiffs do claim that certain third parties own the land, and not the government, and this in itself represents an assertion of title that runs adverse to the government. In these circumstances, the plain meaning of the phrase adverse claimants does not adequately answer the question before us. 13 In considering this very issue, the Ninth Circuit rejected the argument made by the plaintiffs and held that the QTA applies any time a party seeks a title determination regarding real property in which the United States asserts an interest. See Metropolitan Water Dist. v. United States, 830 F.2d 139, 143-44 (9th Cir. 1987) (per curiam), aff'd sub nom. California v. United States, 490 U.S. 920 (1989). In that case, the Metropolitan Water District sought to prevent an Indian tribe from gaining additional water rights as the result of an expansion in the tribe's reservation boundaries. See id. at 141. Although recognizing that the water district was not seeking to quiet title in itself, the court held that the QTA applied because the water district s[ought] a determination of the boundaries of the Reservation and [t]he effect of a successful challenge would be to quiet title in others than the Tribe. Id. at 143. In a later opinion, the Ninth Circuit noted that Metropolitan Water District expanded the application of the QTA to govern suits involving plaintiffs who, while not seeking to quiet title in themselves, might potentially affect the property rights of others through successfully litigating their claims. Alaska v. Babbitt, 38 F.3d 1068, 1074 (9th Cir. 1994). 14 Although no other court has considered the issue presented to us in as direct a fashion as the Ninth Circuit, several courts have indicated that the Ninth Circuit's broad reading of the exclusivity of the QTA is correct. In a suit for money damages based on an allegedly invalid government sale of land, the Supreme Court rejected the plaintiff's attempts to avoid the QTA on the ground that resolution of the case entailed determining who held valid title to the land in question. See United States v. Mottaz, 476 U.S. 834, 841-43 (1986) (noting that the claim for title is the essence and bottom line of respondent's case). Similarly, in cases where the QTA is raised as a jurisdictional issue, other federal courts consistently apply the QTA in circumstances where parties do not seek to quiet title in themselves. See Rosette, Inc. v. United States, 141 F.3d 1394, 1397 (10th Cir. 1998) (dismissing a declaratory judgment action brought outside the QTA because the plaintiff's claims were all linked to the question of title); Nevada v. United States, 731 F.2d 633, 636 (9th Cir. 1984) (applying the QTA to a Property Clause claim where, in order to succeed, the plaintiff would have to show that the United States lacked title to the property in dispute); Hat Ranch, Inc. v. Babbitt, 932 F.Supp. 1, 3 (D.D.C. 1995), aff'd sub nom. Hat Ranch, Inc. v. United States, 102 F.3d 1272 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (refusing to consider declaratory judgment action where [t]he authority to levy grazing fees depends upon ownership of the land and where [i]n order to decide who is entitled to assess and collect grazing fees, th[e] Court would be required to decide who owns the [disputed lands]); Town of Beverly Shores v. Lujan, 736 F.Supp. 934, 944 (N.D. Ind. 1989) (dismissing an APA claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because an action pursuant to the APA . . . is not the proper method for determining competing claims to real property to which the United States of America claims interest). It thus appears that the majority of courts that have considered the QTA in the context of claims that do not seek to quiet title in the party bringing the action have nonetheless found the Act applicable, and we find the reasoning of these cases persuasive. 15 In adopting the QTA, Congress waived the United States' sovereign immunity to suits challenging the United States' title to land. See Lombard v. United States, 194 F.3d 305, 308 (1st Cir. 1999). However, this waiver of sovereign immunity is limited, most importantly by the Acts' twelve year statute of limitations on title claims, 28 U.S.C. sec. 2409a(g), and by the preservation of immunity in cases where the United States claims an interest in land as trust or restricted Indian land, 28 U.S.C. sec. 2409a(a). To allow claimants to avoid the QTA by characterizing their complaint as a challenge to the federal government's regulatory authority would be to allow parties to seek a legal determination of disputed title without being subject to the limitations placed on such challenges. See Rosette, 141 F.3d at 1397 (stating that allowing a declaratory judgment action would render the Quiet Title Act's statute of limitations meaningless); Nevada, 731 F.2d at 636 (arguing that to allow a Property Clause challenge outside the QTA would be to render [that Act's] statute of limitations meaningless). 'It would require the suspension of disbelief to ascribe to Congress the design to allow its careful and thorough remedial scheme to be circumvented by artful pleading.' Block, 461 U.S. at 285 (quoting Brown v. GSA, 425 U.S. 820, 833 (1976)). Because we believe that Congress intended for suits that require resolution of a disputed claim to real property in which the United States claims an interest to be brought under the QTA, we hold that the district court properly dismissed the plaintiffs' constitutional challenge for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.