Court Opinion

ID: 9474489
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:58:45.497718+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:07.163829
License: Public Domain

SETH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I must respectfully dissent from the position taken by the majority for the reasons hereinafter expressed.
This is an action for compensation for property used by the United States in the Arkansas River Navigation Project. The plaintiff asserts that the Arkansas River is a “private stream” belonging to the Cherokees because they own the stream bed under a title acquired from the United States. Plaintiff nevertheless acknowledges that it is a navigable river. The Government argues that its exercise of the navigational servitude rights under the Constitution is founded on improvements to navigation directed by Congress on a navigable river and thus the nature of the ownership of the stream bed or how such title may have been acquired is not significant.
The improvements to navigation on the Arkansas River have extended over a long period of time. The river is one of the great rivers of the country and provided access from the Mississippi to the West since early times. The river traffic is now large. The improvements to navigation with which we are here concerned were directed, by Congress in 1946 (Act of July 24, 1946). The Project completed in 1971 was known as the MeClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System. There can be no serious challenge to the fact that Congress determined that the Project was for the benefit of navigation and that this was a “legislative judgment.” United States v. Twin City Power Co., 350 U.S. 222, 76 S.Ct. 259, 100 L.Ed. 240.
The plaintiff herein was one of the petitioners in Choctaw Nation v. Oklahoma, 397 U.S. 620, 90 S.Ct. 1328, 25 L.Ed.2d 615, decided by the Supreme Court in 1970. The Court there held after considering the treaties and patent:
“[T]he United States intended to and did convey title to the bed of the Arkansas River below its junction with the Grand River ... in the grants it made to petitioners.”
397 U.S. at 635-36, 90 S.Ct. at 1336-37. By this litigation which concerned only the bed of the river, it was determined that the Cherokees received title by patent to the entire river bed of the Arkansas from the Grand River to the Canadian River and the North one-half of the bed from the Canadian to the Arkansas-Oklahoma State line as against the claim of the State of Oklahoma. This title was a determinable fee and was an execution of the title obligations in the several treaties. The patent, of course, covered a large tract of land of which the disputed stream bed was a small element.
The Cherokee lands were made subject to allotments to individual Indians beginning about 1898 (30 Stat. 495) as was done generally throughout the country as a matter of policy. (See the General Allotment Act of 1887.) Much of the land was allotted and the remainder is held in trust by the United States for the Cherokees. The Tribe ceased to exist as a governmental entity in 1906 but was later reorganized.
This action is based by plaintiff on its undisputed ownership of the bed of the Arkansas River. The claim apparently is not based on riparian ownership, but it is obvious that the plaintiff was at one time a riparian owner and may be now as to some tracts. But, in any event, the nature and source of plaintiff’s title makes no real difference.
All concerned acknowledge that the Arkansas River in this area is navigable. It carries a substantial tonnage of freight and has been an active waterway since the settlement of the West. The Court in Choc*881taw, as indicated, was concerned with title to the stream bed but nevertheless stated:
“Indeed, the United States seems to have had no present interest in retaining title to the river bed at all; it had all it was concerned with in its navigational easement via the constitutional power over commerce.”
397 U.S. at 635, 90 S.Ct. at 1336-37. The Cherokees, as stated in Cherokee Nation v. Oklahoma, 402 F.2d 739, 745 (10th Cir.), had taken the position that the ownership of the stream bed was “not necessary to the exercise of control over navigation incidental to the authority of the Government under the Commerce Clause.”
In any event, in this country navigable rivers are “public property” and have been since the earliest time. Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713, 70 U.S. 713, 18 L.Ed. 96; United States v. Rands, 389 U.S. 121, 88 S.Ct. 265, 19 L.Ed.2d 329. Navigation on such rivers has been under the exclusive control of the federal Government — of Congress — under the Commerce Clause. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat 1, 22 U.S. 1, 6 L.Ed. 23.
In United States v. Rands, 389 U.S. 121, 122-23, 88 S.Ct. 265, 266-67, 19 L.Ed.2d 329, the Court said:
“The Commerce Clause confers a unique position upon the Government in connection with navigable waters. ‘The power to regulate commerce comprehends the control for that purpose, and to the extent necessary, of all the navigable waters of the United States____ For this purpose they are the public property of the nation, and subject to all the requisite legislation by Congress.’ Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713, 724-725 [18 L.Ed. 96] (1866). This power to regulate navigation confers upon the United States a ‘dominant servitude,’ FPC v. Niagara Mohawk Power Corp., 347 U.S. 239, 249 [74 S.Ct. 487, 493, 98 L.Ed. 666] (1954), which extends to the entire stream and the stream bed below ordinary high-water mark. The proper exercise of this power is not an invasion of any private property rights in the stream or the lands underlying it, for the damage sustained does not result from taking property from riparian owners within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment but from the lawful exercise of a power to which the interests of riparian owners have always been subject. United States v. Chicago, M., St. P. & P.R. Co., 312 U.S. 592, 596-597 [61 S.Ct. 772, 775, 85 L.Ed. 1064] (1941); Gibson v. United States, 166 U.S. 269, 275-276 [17 S.Ct. 578, 580, 41 L.Ed. 996] (1897).”
The Court on this subject has relied frequently on United States v. Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & P.R. Co., 312 U.S. 592, 61 S.Ct. 771, 85 L.Ed. 1064. The opinion in that case considers several issues here raised. The Court there in part said, at 596-97, 61 S.Ct. at 775:
“And the determination of the necessity for a given improvement of navigable capacity, and the character and extent of it, is for Congress alone. Whether, under local law, the title to the bed of the stream is retained by the State or the title of the riparian owner extends to the thread of the stream, or, as in this case, to low-water mark, the rights of the title holder are subordinate to the dominant power of the federal Government in respect of navigation.
“The dominant power of the federal Government, as has been repeatedly held, extends to the entire bed of a stream, which includes the lands below ordinary high-water mark. The exercise of the power within these limits is not an invasion of any private property right in such lands for which the United States must make compensation.”
The Court there held that the determination of the need for improvement to navigation “is for Congress alone.” The navigational servitude doctrine then becomes applicable within its prescribed geographical scope as it was stated in United States v. Rands, 389 U.S. 121,123, 88 S.Ct. 265, 267, 19 L.Ed.2d 329:
“The navigational servitude of the United States does not extend beyond the *882high-water mark. Consequently, when fast lands are taken by the Government, just compensation must be paid.”
Thus the challenges are to the nature and location of the property used by the Government when its owners seek an exception to the application of the servitude. There appears to be no balancing of public good against private interest in these instances, but instead the issue is whether the segment or interest is within the definition and scope of the doctrine geographically as the above quotations demonstrate. Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U.S. 164, 100 S.Ct. 383, 62 L.Ed.2d 332, is a variation on the geographical limitations of the doctrine.
The navigational servitude power has been exercised and upheld in cases where States own the bed of the stream. We have considered Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544, 555, 101 S.Ct. 1245, 1253, 67 L.Ed.2d 493, and noted the statement therein that the power exists “regardless of who owns the riverbed.” The other cases concerning State ownership of the riverbed are basically the same. There is nothing unusual in having the ownership of a navigable stream bed vested in an entity other than the United States, and this makes no difference in the application of the power including those situations where a State owns the riverbed. See also United States v. Holt State Bank, 270 U.S. 49, 46 S.Ct. 197, 70 L.Ed. 465, and United States v. Oregon, 295 U.S. 1, 55 S.Ct. 610, 79 L.Ed. 1267. Since the United States may use the doctrine of navigational servitude against the States it must also be applicable against the Cherokees in this case.
The Cherokees here assert that they are a sovereign nation and the doctrine cannot be used against them. The Court considered such a position in Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544, 563,101 S.Ct. 1245, 1257, 67 L.Ed.2d 493, and referred to United States v. Wheeler, 435 U.S. 313, 323, 98 S.Ct. 1079, 1086, 55 L.Ed.2d 303, where it was said that Indian tribes are “unique aggregations possessing attributes of sovereignty over both their members and their territory.” Wheeler also stated that the Indian tribes had lost many of the attributes of sovereignty. Again in Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544, 564, 101 S.Ct. 1245, 1257-58, 67 L.Ed.2d 493, the Court said:
“But exercise of tribal power beyond what is necessary to protect tribal self-government or to control internal relations is inconsistent with the dependent status of the tribes, and so cannot survive without express congressional delegation.”
The Court quoted Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U.S. 145, 93 S.Ct. 1267, 36 L.Ed.2d 114, and other cases.
There would seem to be no basis by reason of the status of plaintiff to limit the application of the navigational servitude nor its consequences.
If the Indians in Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544, 101 S.Ct. 1245, 67 L.Ed.2d 493, would have had title to the riverbed it would have made no difference in the application of the navigational servitude. As the Court there said, at 555, 101 S.Ct. at 1253:
“As the Court of Appeals recognized, ibid., and as the respondents concede, the United States retains a navigational easement in the navigable waters lying within the described boundaries for the benefit of the public, regardless of who owns the riverbed. Therefore, such phrases in the 1868 treaty as ‘absolute and undisturbed use and occupation’ and ‘no persons, except those herein designated ... shall ever be permitted,’ whatever they seem to mean literally, do not give the Indians the exclusive right to occupy all the territory within the described boundaries. Thus, even if exclusivity were the same as ownership, the treaty language establishing this ‘right of exclusivity’ could not have the meaning that the Court of Appeals ascribed to it.”
Again the exercise of the servitude is not the taking of property but the exercise of a *883power to which the property owners have always been subject.
The plaintiff seems to argue that the United States somehow bargained away this power to control and improve navigation and bargained away the public nature of the Arkansas River. But again, the title elements of the several treaties were executed and the obligations merged in and were discharged by the conveyance of title to the Cherokees. There is nothing more now to add to the title to make it a “fee plus.” There is no residual element in the treaties as to title. The fact that the Choctaw court considered history and the treaties to arrive at its conclusion and may have considered them unusual as to the title to the bed of the river does not here increase the extent or nature of the Cherokees’ title which passed by the patent in 1836 as the Choctaw court decided. Thus the treaty rights are in the patent. The Cherokees thus on this issue are no different than would be any other entity with title to the riverbed. There is no authority and no basis for an exception to the public nature of the navigable river to create a “private river” as plaintiff urges nor to create an exception to the application of the navigational servitude because plaintiff is an Indian tribe.
There would seem to be no issue in this appeal as to the trust obligations of the United States. This matter was not considered by the trial court and there seems to be no ownership interest to be derived therefrom.
I would reverse the trial court.