Court Opinion

ID: 9453613
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:18:59.451493+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:44.016044
License: Public Domain

COLEMAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
The Constitution, Amendment V, man-datorily commands that no person shall be deprived of property without due process of law.
Assuming the allegations of the complaint to be true, as we must do in passing on the validity of a dismissal for want of jurisdiction, I must respectfully dissent.
I agree that the United States cannot be sued to compel the execution of a quitclaim deed, but that does not reach the heart of this litigation nor is it indispensable to the vindication of rights asserted by these appellants. Baldly stated, I do not believe that the doctrine of sovereign immunity should be superior to or permitted to nullify a mandatory command of the Constitution. It is not entitled to that kind of judicial sanctity.
The ably and concisely written majority opinion accurately recites the history of the litigation. It freely concedes that the boundary in issue was determined by a treaty, which is the supreme Law of the Land. The Supreme Court, after extensive litigation, to which the government was a party, has adjudicated and decreed that this boundary follows accretion. Appellants say that this accretion has taken place.
The defendants, however, by the invocation of sovereign immunity on behalf of one of the parties involved, propose to keep land which is not theirs. They propose to do it without allowing appellants a day in court. Thus, in my opinion, the treaty, the Supreme Court decrees, and the Constitution itself are rendered impotent.
The constitutional command is higher than the doctrine of sovereign immunity. Indeed, at the very least it is, or should be, a positive waiver of the doctrine in such cases. Even in the absence of waiv*738er, I would hold that the doctrine cannot be used to defeat Constitutional guaranties.
I would, therefore, further hold that the United States Courts are open for the purpose of allowing these appellants an opportunity to prove their ownership. If they cannot, that ends the matter. I would not permit either the government, or those private parties who seek to hide behind its skirts, to benefit from the application of the doctrine in frustration of the Constitution.
Nor do I have any sympathy for the argument that agents and officials of the United States cannot be sued in such a ease. If such agents or officials are acting in violation of Constitutional guaranties they cannot be legally acting for a government which must support and maintain that Constitution.
The majority says appellants may have a right of action for damages under the Tucker Act. The Constitution commands that they shall have the property.
I respectfully dissent.