Court Opinion

ID: 9426642
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:18:33.653815+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:02.114801
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Marshall,
with whom Mr. Justice White joins,
dissenting.
The Court today overrules a three-year-old decision, Bonelli Cattle Co. v. Arizona, 414 U. S. 313 (1973), in which *383seven of the eight participating Justices joined. In addition, as the Court is certain to announce when the occasion arises, today’s holding also overrules Hughes v. Washington, 389 U. S. 290 (1967), a nine-year-old decision also joined by all but one of the participating Justices.1 It is surprising, to say the least, to find these nearly unanimous recent decisions swept away in the name of stare decisis. See ante, at 381-382.
The public, especially holders of riparian or littoral prop*384erty whose titles derive from the United States, deserve some explanation for the Court’s change of course. Yet today’s majority does not contend either that circumstances have changed since 1973 or that experience has shown Hughes and Bonelli to be unworkable. Nor does the majority attempt to explain why a result it finds so clearly commanded by our earlier cases was almost unanimously rejected by this Court twice in the last decade. We are left, then, with a mystery.
I respectfully suggest that the solution to this puzzle is not hard to find. In contrast to the Bonelli and Hughes Courts, the Court today decides a question the parties did not present,2 brief,3 or argue.4 By so doing, the Court rules *385without the benefit of “that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult constitutional questions.” Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 204 (1962). The lack of illumination has caused the Court to choose the wrong path.
I
The question the Court elects to 'decide in this case is whether a grant of riparian5 land by the Federal Government is to be interpreted according to federal or state law. The Court holds that federal law governs only the determination of the initial boundaries of the grant; all other questions are to be determined under state law. This conclusion *386depends on an unjustifiably limited interpretation of the meaning of a riparian grant.
It is undisputed that “the quality of being riparian” is perhaps “the land’s 'most valuable feature’ and is part and parcel of the ownership of the land itself.” Bonelli Cattle Co. v. Arizona, 414 U. S., at 326, quoting Hughes v. Washington, 389 U. S., at 293. Cf. New Orleans v. United States, 10 Pet. 662, 717 (1836), In the natural course, however, a riparian boundary tends to move, a fact reflected in the common-law doctrines of accretion, avulsion, erosion, and reliction. Prior to today’s ruling, federal grantees of riparian land, and holders under them, correctly understood that their titles incorporated boundaries whose precise location would depend on the movements of the water and on the federal common law.
There can be no doubt that the federal grantee’s expectation that his grant would be interpreted according to federal law and his belief that federal law would recognize boundary shifts occasioned by changes in the course of the water bordering his land were well founded. One hundred forty years ago, this Court found it obvious that whoever had title to the land bordering water would have title to new land formed by alluvial deposits on the existing upland:
“The question is well settled at common law, that the person whose land is bounded by a stream of water, which changes its course gradually by alluvial formations, shall still hold by the same boundary, including the accumulated soil. No other rule can be applied on just principles. Every proprietor whose land is thus bounded is subject to loss, by the same means which may add to his territory: and as he is without remedy for his loss, in this way, he cannot be held accountable for his gain.” Ibid, (emphasis added).
This statement of the law was quoted by the Court in County of St. Clair v. Lovingston, 23 Wall. 46, 68 (1874). *387The Court in County of St. Clair went on to note: “The riparian right to future alluvion is a vested right. It is an inherent and essential attribute of the original property.” Ibid, (emphasis added). Similarly, in Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1 (1894),6 the Court said:
“The rule, everywhere admitted, that where the land encroaches upon the water by gradual and imperceptible degrees, the accretion or alluvion belongs to the owner of the land, is equally applicable to lands bounding on tide waters or on fresh waters, and to the King or the State as to private persons; and is independent of the law governing the title in the soil covered by the water.” Id., at 35 (emphasis added).
Thus, the right to such additions7 was part of the title which passed with the federal grant, cf. 3 American Law of Property § 15.27, p. 859 (A. J. Casner ed. 1952), and was protected by federal law. By holding that state law now governs the impact of changes in the course of the bordering water on a federal riparian grant, the Court denies that “a question which concerns the validity and effect of an act done by the United States” is “necessarily a federal question.” Borax, Ltd. v. Los Angeles, 296 U. S. 10, 22 (1935). As far as federal law is concerned, a federal riparian grant *388is now understood to have incorporated a fixed rather than ambulatory boundary. Ante, at 376. The rule of New Orleans v. United States, supra, and County of St. Clair v. Lovingston, supra, is discarded along with Bonelli and Hughes.
The cases the Court concludes compel this dramatic shift do not even support it. Wilcox v. Jackson, 13 Pet. 498 (1839),8 was an action of ejectment brought against the commander of a United States military post to recover part of the post. The plaintiff claimed under a state registration certificate. As the majority notes, the Court rejected that argument with the following language:
“We hold the true principle to be this, that whenever the question in any Court, state or federal, is, whether a title to land which had once been the property of the United States has passed, that question must be resolved by the laws of the United States; but that whenever, according to those laws, the title shall have passed, then that property, like all other property in the state, is subject to state legislation; so far as that legislation is consistent with the admission that the title passed and vested according to the laws of the United States.” Id., at 517 (emphasis added).
The italicized language, on which the majority opinion makes no comment, explains why state law cannot control this case. Denial of the riparian holder’s federal common-law rights to a changing boundary is not “consistent with the admission that the title . . . vested according to the laws of the United States.”
In Packer v. Bird, 137 U. S. 661 (1891),9 the Court held that it would construe federal grants of lands bordering navigable but nontidal waters as reaching only to the edge *389of the stream. As it did in Wilcox, the Court in Packer noted that state law governs property once it has passed from the hands of the Federal Government. But the Packer Court, like its predecessor, also noted that the influence of state law is “subject to the condition that [state] rules do not impair the efficacy of the [federal] grants or the use and enjoyment of the property by the grantee.” 137 U. S., at 669. Today’s holding, which allows States to divest federally granted lands of their valuable quality of being riparian simply by refusing to recognize the titleholders’ common-law rights, obviously removes this fundamental limitation on state power.
The Court also attempts to draw support from cases which affirm the proposition that the riparian title passed by a federal grant conveys title only to the water’s edge, not to the middle of the stream. Barney v. Keokuk, 94 U. S. 324 (1877),10 was a controversy over the ownership of land created when the city of Keokuk filled in land below the ordinary high-water mark. The plaintiff claimed title to the new land by virtue of his asserted ownership of the adjacent upland. The Court noted that “[i]t is generally conceded that the riparian title attaches to subsequent accretions to the land effected by the gradual and imperceptible operation of natural causes.” Id., at 337. Whether the same rule applied to land created out of the bed of the river, however, the Court considered a question of state law. The reason for this, as the Court explained, is that the riparian rights granted by the Federal Government extended only to the water’s edge; if the States wish to grant the riparian owner rights beyond that point, they may do so at their own discretion. See id., at 338. The Court transforms this conclusion that the States may, if they wish, enlarge the title granted by the Federal Government into support for the proposition that the States *390may also restrict that title. The transformation is impressive, but it is not logical.
The issue before the Court in Shively v. Bowlby, supra, was the title to land below the high-water mark of the Columbia River in Oregon. Shively claimed under a prestatehood grant from the United States, while Bowlby based his title on a subsequent grant from the State of Oregon. The Court held for Bowlby, finding that although Congress could have granted Shively title to the land he claimed,11 it had not done so, nor had the State. 152 U. S., at 48-57.
As the majority indicates, the Shively Court engaged in a thorough review of earlier cases. It summarized its conclusions, in part, as follows:
“The title and rights of riparian or littoral proprietors in the soil below [the] high water mark, therefore, are governed by the laws of the several States, subject to the rights granted to the United States by the Constitution.” Id., at 57-58.
But the Shively Court, unlike today’s majority, realized that this proposition does not affect the rights of riparian holders to the benefits of the common-law doctrines governing boundary changes.12 Those rights are “independent of *391the law governing the title in the soil covered by the water.” Id., at 35. See id., at 36.13
Thus, the cases refute the majority’s contention that the results in Hughes and Bonelli sharply departed from prior law. Today’s holding cannot, therefore, be based on interpretation of the meaning of the pre-statehood riparian grants under which Corvallis Sand & Gravel holds title, since the right to an ambulatory boundary was assumed to be part of the rights of a riparian grantee at the time the grants were made. Moreover, the cases also demonstrate that there is no constitutional basis for today’s holding. The only constitutional question discussed in the majority opinion is the law governing the States’ title to land beneath navigable waters, and the rights of the riparian holder are independent of that law.
II
Since today’s ruling cannot be a matter either of constitutional law or of interpretation of the meaning of federal grants, it must be a choice-of-law decision. In deciding whether to formulate and apply a federal common-law rule, “normally the guiding principle is that a sig*392nificant conflict between some federal policy or interest and the use of state law in the premises must first be specifically shown.” Wallis v. Pan American Petroleum Corp., 384 U. S. 63, 68 (1966). See generally P. Bator, P. Mishkin, D. Shapiro, & H. Wechsler, Hart & Wechsler’s The Federal Courts and the Federal System 756-832 (2d ed. 1973). In order to assure an informed presentation of federal policies and interests when faced with a choice between federal and state law, this Court in the past has invited the Solicitor General to file a brief amicus curiae expressing the views of the United States.14 See, e. g., Wallis v. Pan American Petroleum Corp., 382 U. S. 810 (1965); Yiatchos v. Yiatchos, 372 U. S. 905 (1963). We followed this practice in both Bonelli, 409 U. S. 1022 (1972), and Hughes, 385 U. S. 807 (1966), and the Solicitor General participated as an amicus in both cases.
Today’s majority has made no similar effort to inform itself about the impact of its ruling on the Federal Government. Indeed, the majority opinion does not even consider that issue, although it is normally central to a choice-of-law decision. As the opinion and result show, the only views the Court has received are those of the amici States, whose interests here are hostile to those of the United States.
I cannot, of course, know what the Solicitor General would have said had the Court indicated that it was considering a choice-of-law question and invited him to present the views of the Government. In both Bonelli and Hughes, however, the submissions for the United States as amicus curiae strongly urged the Court to hold that federal rather *393than state law governed the case. In Bonelli, the Government noted that its quiet enjoyment of the more than 200 miles of Colorado River shoreline it owned in Arizona had been threatened by some interpretations of the state court’s decision. Memorandum for the United States as Amicus Curiae 1-2, filed Sept. 20, 1973, in Bonelli Cattle Co. v. Arizona, O. T. 1973, No. 72-397. The Government urged that the state-court opinion be given a narrow interpretation and affirmed as consistent with the applicable federal law. Id., at 3-5.
In Hughes, the Government urged that the decision of the State Supreme Court be reversed. The Solicitor General explained that the Government considered that decision a serious threat:
"The decision is of broad consequence. It trenches on a significant element of title to realty acquired from the United States in the past and it materially curtails the nature of the title that the United States may convey in the future. . . . Equally important, it affects the powers of the United States with respect to more than 200 miles of Washington’s coastline owned today by the federal government. Moreover, the principle of a fixed tideland boundary may readily be brought to bear on the property of the United States and its patentees in other coastal States. ... Nor is there any apparent reason why, in Washington or elsewhere, the principle should be limited to tidelands; it can be applied with consistency of logic to the shifting banks of rivers and lakes owned by a State. . . . An inducement for the adoption and expansion of this principle is not ■lacking, since it tends inevitably to bring land into State ownership, and the sale of land thus acquired has been recognized as an attractive source of State revenue ....
“To be sure, the court below stated that it did not ‘question the federal government’s right over its own *394property’ .... [But] the court below failed to recognize that 'the federal government’s right over its own property’ embraces the right effectively to dispose of such property.” Memorandum for United States as Amicus Curiae 3-5 in Hughes v. Washington, O. T. 1967, No. 15.
The Solicitor General explained that the decision in Hughes endangered the Government’s ability to carry out congressional policy toward Indians, since the Government would no longer have been able to convey rights to a boundary adjacent to the sea if it turned over trust lands to the Indian beneficiaries. Id., at 5-6; cf. United States v. Washington, 294 F. 2d 830 (CA9 1961), cert. denied, 369 U. S. 817 (1962). But the problem with the Indian trust lands was merely “exemplary” because the state decision in Hughes
“restrains the government from disposing of the full measure of its title in connection with any program or policy which it may wish to pursue in the future. In sum, we do not believe that it can be said here, as it could in Wallis v. Pan American Petroleum Corp., 384 U. S. 63, 68, that there is 'no significant threat to any identifiable federal policy or interest.’ ” Memorandum for United States as Amicus Curiae 6 in Hughes v. Washington, supra.
Today’s decision necessarily has an even greater impact on federal interests, since it casts doubt on the Government’s continued ownership “of the full measure of its title.”
Ill
One final word. Stare decisis should be more than a fine-sounding phrase. This is especially true for us, because “unless we respect the . . . decisions of this Court, we can hardly expect that others will do so.” Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U. S. 600, 629, 634 (1974) (Stewart, J., dissenting). Accordingly, “[a] substantial departure from precedent can *395only be justified ... in the light of experience with the application of the rule to be abandoned or in the light of an altered historic environment.” Id., at 634-635. Such admonitions are even more salient where land titles are concerned. Yet the majority has advanced neither experience nor changed circumstances to justify its interment of a 7-1 decision of this Court issued barely three years ago.
I am convinced that if the Court had considered the cases on which it relies in the light of an adversary presentation and had invited the Government to explain its interest in the application of federal law, the result today would be different. I therefore respectfully disssent.

 Although the Court rejects the reasoning on which Hughes is based, it refrains from formally overruling Hughes on the ground that that case was not relied on in Bonelli and not cited by the Oregon courts below. Ante, at 377 n. 6. In Bonelli, the Solicitor General urged the Court to find federal law controlling because riparian lands patented by the United States were involved and, under Hughes, federal common law therefore controlled the riparian rights of the landowner. Memorandum for United States as Amicus Curiae 3-4, filed Jan. 2, 1973; and Memorandum for United States as Amicus Curiae 2-3, filed Sept. 20, 1973, in Bonelli Cattle Co. v. Arizona, O. T. 1973, No. 72-397. The petitioner took the same position. Brief for Petitioners 31-34 in Bonelli Cattle Co. v. Arizona, supra. The Bonelli Court did not reach this contention, noting that there was some doubt that the land in question was riparian at the time of the federal patent. 414 U. S., at 321 n. 11. In its eagerness to do away with Bonelli’s result as well as its approach, however, today’s opinion explicitly concludes that had Bonelli relied on the theory advocated by the petitioner there and the Solicitor General, it would now be rejected. Ante, at 371-372, 378-381.
Nevertheless, the majority suggests that Hughes might still control oceanfront property. Ante, at 377 n. 6. It is difficult to take seriously the suggestion that the national interest in international relations justifies applying'a different rule to oceanfront land grants than to other grants by the Federal Government. It is clear that the States have complete title to the lands below the line of mean high tide. See Borax, Ltd. v. Los Angeles, 296 U. S. 10 (1935); 43 U. S. C. §§ 1301 (a) (2), 1311. These lands, of course, are the only place where the waters “ ‘lap both the lands of the State and the boundaries of the international sea.’” Ante, at 377 n. 6, quoting Hughes v. Washington, 389 U. S., at 293. There are no international relations implications in the ownership of land above the line of mean high tide. See Note, The Federal Rule of Accretion and California Coastal Protection, 48 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1457, 1472 (1975).

 The cross-petitions for certiorari did not raise the question whether federal law governed the outcome; they were concerned only with whether the Oregon courts properly interpreted the governing federal common law.
The State’s petition for certiorari in No. 76-567 stated the question presented as:
“In a typical situation of a navigable river flowing through two channels, where the smaller of the two channels after 20 years of erosive flooding 'suddenly’ becomes the main channel, and the other channel eventually becomes unusable, does federal law deprive the public of title to the beds of both channels?”
In No. 75-577, Corvallis Sand & Gravel Co. raised two questions in its petition for certiorari:
“1. Does plaintiff, State of Oregon, have sufficient ownership to maintain statutory ejectment to recover possession of the bed of a navigable fresh water stream where its claim of ownership is based on sovereignty rather than grant and where there is no allegation pleaded and no proof that the public rights of navigation, fishery and related uses are being impaired or interfered with by defendant Corvallis Sand and Gravel Company?
“2. Does plaintiff, State of Oregon, have sufficient ownership to maintain statutory ejectment to recover damages for the removal of sand and gravel from the bed of a navigable fresh water stream where its claim of ownership is based on sovereignty rather than grant and where there *385is no pleaded allegation or proof that the public rights of navigation, fishery and related uses are being impaired or interfered with by the defendant Corvallis Sand and Gravel Company?”

 The parties’ briefs faithfully mirrored their perceptions of the issues as presented in the petitions for certiorari. Thus, in No. 75-567, the State argued that the public interest requires recognition that the sovereign title in a riverbed is “full and complete” and that protecting that title requires that federal common law apply avulsion principles against a State only in very rare cases. Alternatively, the State argued that if classic avulsion principles applied, it still should receive title to the contested land. Corvallis Sand & Gravel responded by challenging the State’s right to ownership of the riverbed under common law and by maintaining that the factfindings of the lower courts were both correct and not subject to review in this Court. In No. 76-577, the parties disputed Corvallis’ contention that the State’s title is limited to protection of navigation, fishery, and related uses and cannot be the basis for an ejectment action when those uses are not affected. Both parties assumed that federal common law governed the case.

 Counsel for the State of California, representing the amici States, argued that Bonelli should be overruled. Neither party addressed that issue except in response to questions from the Court. In response to those questions, counsel for both parties stated that federal common law should govern this case. Tr. of Oral Arg. 14,28, 33.

 For convenience, I will use “riparian” in place of “riparian or littoral” for the remainder of this opinion.

 Cited ante, at 375, 379-380.

 In Bonelli, the question was ownership of relicted land, which is land exposed by the subsidence of the water. The law of reliction is identical to the law of accretion. 3 American Law of Property § 15.26 (A. J. Casner ed. 1952). In the present case, the State claims title to land by virtue of the doctrine of erosion, the converse of accretion. Corvallis Sand & Gravel resists by arguing that the change in the river’s course was not gradual, as erosion and accretion require, but sudden. A sudden, or avulsive, change does not effect a shift in boundaries. These doctrines form a coherent system. It would make no sense to hold that the federal doctrine of accretion must be applied to the benefit of a federal riparian grantee but that the federal doctrine of avulsion need not be applied.

 Cited ante, at 371, 372, 377.

 Cited ante, at 380.

 Cited ante, at 374, 379.

 The language in Pollard’s Lessee v. Hagan, 3 How. 212 (1845), on which the majority heavily relies to prove that Congress had no such power, see ante, at 372-374, was dismissed as dictum by the Shively Court. See 152 U. S., at 28.

 The majority also quotes the Shively Court’s statement that federal grants “ ‘leave the question of the use of the shores by the owners of uplands to the sovereign control of each State.’ ” Ante, at 379, quoting 152 U. S., at 58. It is clear from the context that by “shores” the Shively Court meant the land below the high-water mark. The State, as owner of that land, controls, it. The Court did not suggest that the State was free to diminish the title of the upland owner by denying his right to an ambulatory boundary if the “shores” recede or the uplands grow.

 The majority’s assertion that the rule of New Orleans v. United States, 10 Pet. 662 (1836), and County of St. Clair v. Lovingston, 23 Wall. 46 (1874), is merely a description of the English common law, ante, at 380-381, n. 8, is belied by the Shively Court’s affirmation of the independence of the riparian holder’s rights from the law governing the lands beneath the water. The majority chooses not to discuss this aspect of Shivély.
Joy v. St. Louis, 201 U. S. 332, 342, 343 (1906), cited ante, at 377, 380, does contain language which supports the conclusions reached by the majority. That case, however, did not involve lands in which a grantee of the United States held or claimed title. The land in that case was granted by Spain. Congress confirmed the grant, but by so doing it added nothing to the title conferred by Spain. See Joy v. St. Louis, 122 P. 524 (ED Mo. 1903), aff’d, 201 U. S. 332 (1906); United States v. Washington, 294 F. 2d 830, 833 (CA9 1961), cert. denied, 369 U. S. 817 (1962).

 When, the papers before the Court indicate that a choice-of-law question will be presented, the Solicitor General sometimes prepares an amicus brief on his own motion. See, e. g., Memorandum for United States as Amicus Curiae and Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in Free v. Bland, O. T. 1961, No. 205. In the present case, of course, the Solicitor General had no notice from the petitions for certiorari that the issue decided today would be raised. See n. 2, supra.