Court Opinion

ID: 9429997
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:28:32.309538+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:19.286877
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
with whom Justice Brennan joins, dissenting.
The Court’s opinion is contrary to the intent of Congress, engages in unnecessary constitutional adjudication, and unjustly creates a trap for unwary property owners. First, the choice of the language “prior to December 31” when read in *118context in 43 U. S. C. § 1744(a)1 is, at least, ambiguous, and, at best, “the consequence of a legislative accident, perhaps caused by nothing more than the unfortunate fact that Con*119gress is too busy to do all of its work as carefully as it should.”2 In my view, Congress actually intended to authorize an annual filing at any time prior to the close of business on December 31st, that is, prior to the end of the calendar year to which the filing pertains.3 Second, even if Congress irrationally intended that the applicable deadline for a calendar year should end one day before the end of the calendar year that has been recognized since the amendment of the Julian Calendar in 8 B.C., it is clear that appellees have substantially complied with the requirements of the statute, in large part because the Bureau of Land Management has issued interpreting regulations that recognize sub*120stantial compliance. Further, the Court today violates not only the long-followed principle that a court should “not pass on the constitutionality of an Act of Congress if a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the question may be avoided,”4 but also the principle that a court should “not decide a constitutional question if there is some other ground upon which to dispose of the case.”5
I
Congress enacted §314 of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act to establish for federal land planners and managers a federal recording system designed to cope with the problem of stale claims, and to provide “an easy way of discovering which Federal lands are subject to either valid or invalid mining claim locations.”6 I submit that the appel-lees’ actions in this case did not diminish the importance of these congressional purposes; to the contrary, their actions were entirely consistent with the statutory purposes, despite the confusion created by the “inartful draftsmanship” of the statutory language.7
A careful reading of § 314 discloses at least three respects in which its text cannot possibly reflect the actual intent of Congress. First, the description of what must be filed in the initial filing and subsequent annual filings is quite obviously garbled. Read literally, § 314(a)(2) seems to require that a *121notice of intent to hold the claim and an affidavit of assessment work performed on the claim must be filed “on a detailed report provided by § 28-1 of Title 30.” One must substitute the word “or” for the word “on” to make any sense at all out of this provision. This error should cause us to pause before concluding that Congress commanded blind allegiance to the remainder of the literal text of § 314.
Second, the express language of the statute is unambiguous in describing the place where the second annual filing shall be made. If the statute is read inflexibly, the owner must “file in the office of the Bureau” the required documents.8 Yet the regulations that the Bureau itself has drafted, quite reasonably, construe the statute to allow filing in a mailbox, provided that the document is actually received by the Bureau prior to the close of business on January 19th of the year following the year in which the statute requires the filing to be made.9 A notice mailed on December 30, 1982, and received by the Bureau on January 19, 1983, was filed “in the office of the Bureau” during 1982 within the meaning of the statute, but one that is hand-delivered to the office on December 31, 1982, cannot be accepted as a 1982 “filing.”
The Court finds comfort in the fact that the implementing regulations have eliminated the risk of injustice. Ante, at 94. But if one must rely on those regulations, it should be apparent that the meaning of the statute itself is not all that obvi*122ous. To begin with, the regulations do not use the language “prior to December 31”; instead, they use “on or before December 30 of each year.”10 The Bureau’s drafting of the regulations using this latter phrase indicates that the meaning of the statute itself is not quite as “plain,” ante, at 93, as the Court assumes; if the language were plain, it is doubtful that the Bureau would have found it necessary to change the language at all. Moreover, the Bureau, under the aegis of the Department of the Interior, once issued a pamphlet entitled “Staking a Mining Claim on Federal Lands” that contained the following information:
“Owners of claims or sites located on or before Oct. 21, 1976, have until Oct. 22, 1979, to file evidence of assessment work performed the preceding year or to file a notice of intent to hold the claim or site. Once the claim or site is recorded with BLM, these documents must be filed on or before December SI of each subsequent year.” Id., at 9-10 (1978) (emphasis added).
“Plain language,” ante, at 93, indeed.
There is a more important reason why the implementing regulations cannot be supportive of the result the Court reaches today: the Bureau’s own deviation from the statutory language in its mail-filing regulation. See n. 9, supra. If the Bureau had issued regulations expressly stating that a *123December 31 filing would be considered timely — just as it has stated that a mail filing received on January 19 is timely — it is inconceivable that anyone would question the validity of its regulation. It appears, however, that the Bureau has more power to interpret an awkwardly drafted statute in an enlightened manner consistent with Congress’ intent than does this Court.11
In light of the foregoing, I cannot believe that Congress intended the words “prior to December 31 of each year” to be given the literal reading the Court adopts today. The statutory scheme requires periodic filings on a calendar-year basis. The end of the calendar year is, of course, correctly described either as “prior to the close of business on December 31,” or “on or before December 31,” but it is surely understandable that the author of § 314 might inadvertently use the words “prior to December 31” when he meant to refer to the end of the calendar year. As the facts of this case demonstrate, the scrivener’s error is one that can be made in good faith. The risk of such an error is, of course, the greatest when the reference is to the end of the calendar year. That it was in fact an error seems rather clear to me because no one has suggested any rational basis for omitting just one day from the period in which an annual filing may be made, and I would not presume that Congress deliberately created a trap for the unwary by such an omission.
*124It would be fully consistent with the intent of Congress to treat any filing received during the 1980 calendar year as a timely filing for that year. Such an interpretation certainly does not interfere with Congress’ intent to establish a federal recording system designed to cope with the problem of stale mining claims on federal lands. The system is established, and apparently, functioning.12 Moreover, the claims here were active; the Bureau was well aware that the appellees intended to hold and to operate their claims.
Additionally, a sensible construction of the statute does not interfere with Congress’ intention to provide “an easy way of discovering which Federal lands are subject to either valid or *125invalid mining claim locations.”13 The Bureau in this case was well aware of the existence and production of appellees’ mining claims; only by blinking reality could the Bureau reach the decision that it did. It is undisputed that the appellees made the first 1980 filing on August 29, 1980, and made the second required filing on December 31, 1980; the Bureau did not declare the mining claims “abandoned and void” until April 4, 1981. Thus, appellees lost their entire livelihood for no practical reason, contrary to the intent of Congress, and because of the hypertechnical construction of a poorly drafted statute, which an agency interprets to allow “filings” far beyond December 30 in some circumstances, but then interprets inflexibly in others.14 Appellants acknowledge that “[i]t may well be that Congress wished to require filing by the end of the calendar year and that the earlier deadline resulted from careless draftmanship.” Brief for Appellants 42, n. 31. I have no doubt that Congress would have chosen to adopt a construction of the statute that filing take place by the end of the calendar year if its attention had been focused on this precise issue. Cf. DelCostello v. Teamsters, 462 U. S. 151, 158 (1983).15
*126I
After concluding its constitutional analysis, the District Court also held that “the standard to be applied to assessment notice requirements is substantial compliance. Measured against this, the Lockes have satisfied their statutory duties under Section 1744 by filing their notices one day late.”16 The District Court grounded its holding on this Court’s analysis in Hickel v. Oil Shale Corp., 400 U. S. 48 (1970).
In Hickel, the Court construed 30 U. S. C. §28, which reads:
“On each claim located after the 10th day of May 1872, and until a patent has been issued therefor, not less than $100 worth of labor shall be performed or improvements *127made during each year. . . . [XJJpon a failure to comply with these conditions, the claim or mine upon which such failure occurred shall be open to relocation in the same manner as if no location of the same had ever been made, provided that the original locators, their heirs, assigns, or legal representatives, have not resumed work upon the claim after failure and before such location.” (Emphasis added.)
Recognizing that a claimant’s “possessory title” should not be disturbed on “flimsy or insubstantial grounds,” 400 U. S., at 57, the Court wrote:
“We agree . . . that every default in assessment work does not cause the claim to be lost. Defaults, however, might be the equivalent of abandonment; and we now hold that token assessment work, or assessment work that does not substantially satisfy the requirements of 30 U. S. C. § 28, is not adequate to ‘maintain’ the claims within the meaning of § 37 of the Leasing Act. To hold otherwise would help defeat the policy that made the United States, as the prospective recipient of royalties, a beneficiary of these oil shale claims. We cannot support [Wilbur v. Krushnic, 280 U. S. 306 (1930),] and [Ickes v. Virginia-Color ado Development Corp., 295 U. S. 639 (1935)], on so broad a ground. Rather, their dicta to the contrary, we conclude that they must be confined to situations where there had been substantial compliance with the assessment work requirements. ...” Ibid.
Hickel thus demonstrates that the District Court was correct that substantial-compliance analysis was appropriate in this case, and that appellees substantially complied with the statute. Appellees earned their livelihood since 1960 by mining the 10 unpatented mining claims now in dispute.17 They paid income taxes, and property and production taxes to the State of Nevada, which appears as an amicus in sup*128port of appellees. The statute, passed in 1976, required appellees to register their mining claims “in the office where the location notice or certificate is recorded” and “in the office of the Bureau” by October 21, 1979; it is not disputed that appellees met the statute’s two initial filing requirements.18 Moreover, the statute required, within three years of October 21, 1976, that appellees file “in the office of the Bureau designated by the Secretary a copy of the official record of the notice of location or certificate of location.”19 Appellees also met this third requirement, thus completely informing the Bureau of the existence, the sizes, the locations, and the ownership of appellees’ active mining claims. After the three initial filing requirements, the statute required that appellees make two separate annual filings: (1) an initial filing with the county recorder; and (2) a copy of the official record of the first filing filed with the Bureau. Appellees made the first of these filings for the 1980 calendar year on August 29, 1980. Because 1980 was generally the first year that claimants — including appellees — had to comply with the annual filing requirements that the new legislation mandated, the Bureau began the practice of mailing reminder notices about the filing due in the Bureau’s office. Appellants acknowledge that appellees did not receive a reminder notice.20 Nevertheless, appellees responsibly inquired about the date of filing with the Bureau for the 1980 calendar year; it is undisputed that Bureau personnel informed them that the filing was due “on or before December 31, 1980.”21 On December 31, 1980, appellees made a 700-mile round trip from Ely to Reno, Nevada, to hand-deliver their filings to the Bureau. The Bureau accepted the filings on that date.
In my view, this unique factual matrix unequivocally contradicts the statutory presumption of an intent to abandon by *129reason of a late filing. In sum, this case presents an ambiguous statute, which, if strictly construed, will destroy valuable rights of appellees, property owners who have complied with all local and federal statutory filing requirements apart from a 1-day “late” filing caused by the Bureau’s own failure to mail a reminder notice necessary because of the statute’s ambiguity and caused by the Bureau’s information to appel-lees that the date on which the filing occurred would be acceptable. Further, long before the Bureau declared a technical “abandonment,” it was in complete possession of all information necessary to assess the activity, locations, and ownership of appellees’ mining claims and it possessed all information needed to carry out its statutory functions. Finally, the Bureau has not claimed that the filing is contrary to the congressional purposes behind the statute, that the filing affected the Bureau’s land-use planning functions in any manner, or that it interfered “in any measurable way” with the Bureau’s need to obtain information.22 A showing of substantial compliance necessitates a significant burden of proof; appellees, whose active mining claims will be destroyed contrary to Congress’ intent, have convinced me that they have substantially complied with the statute.
I respectfully dissent.

 The full text of 43 U. S. C. § 1744 reads as follows:
“Recordation of Mining Claims
“(a) Filing requirements
“The owner of an unpatented lode or placer mining claim located prior to October 21, 1976, shall, within the three-year period following October 21, 1976 and prior to December 31 of each year thereafter, file the instruments required by paragraphs (1) and (2) of this subsection. The owner of an unpatented lode or placer mining claim located after October 21, 1976 shall, prior to December 31 of each year following the calendar year in which the said claim was located, file the instruments required by paragraphs (1) and (2) of this subsection:
“(1) File for record in the office where the location notice or certificate is recorded either a notice of intention to hold the mining claim (including but not limited to such notices as are provided by law to be filed when there has been a suspension or deferment of annual assessment work), an affidavit of assessment work performed thereon, on a detailed report provided by section 28-1 of title 30, relating thereto.
“(2) File in the office of the Bureau designated by the Secretary a copy of the official record of the instrument filed or recorded pursuant to paragraph (1) of this subsection, including a description of the location of the mining claim sufficient to locate the claimed lands on the ground.
“(b) Additional filing requirements
“The owner of an unpatented lode or placer mining claim or mill or tunnel site located prior to October 21, 1976 shall, within the three-year period following October 21, 1976, file in the office of the Bureau designated by the Secretary a copy of the official record of the notice of location or certificate of location, including a description of the location of the mining claim or mill or tunnel site sufficient to locate the claimed lands on the ground. The owner of an unpatented lode or placer mining claim or mill or tunnel site located after October 21, 1976 shall, within ninety days after the date of location of such claim, file in the office of the Bureau designated by the Secretary a copy of the official record of the notice of location or certificate of location, including a description of the location of the mining claim or mill or tunnel site sufficient to locate the claimed lands on the ground.
“(c) Failure to file as constituting abandonment; defective or untimely filing
“The failure to file such instruments as required by subsections (a) and (b) of this section shall be deemed conclusively to constitute an abandon*119ment of the mining claim or mill or tunnel site by the owner; but it shall not be considered a failure to file if the instrument is defective or not timely filed for record under other Federal laws permitting filing or recording thereof, or if the instrument is filed for record by or on behalf of some but not all of the owners of the mining claim or mill or tunnel site.
“(d) Validity of claims, waiver of assessment, etc., as unaffected
“Such recordation or application by itself shall not render valid any claim which would not be otherwise valid under applicable law. Nothing in this section shall be construed as a waiver of the assessment and other requirements of such law.”

 Delaware Tribal Business Committee v. Weeks, 430 U. S. 73, 97 (1977) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (emphasis added).

 This view was expressed at the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Institute in July 1977:
“It is plain that Congress intended the filing requirement to expire with the last day of the year, but inartful draftsmanship requires all filings under Subsection 314(a) of the Act to be made on or before December 30th. Such is the result of the unfortunate use of the words ‘prior to December 31.’ And since December 31st bears no relationship to the assessment year, which ends at noon on September 1st of each year, the statutory requirement that the locator shall file the necessary documents on or before December 30th of each year following the calendar year in which a claim was located, means that where a claim is located after noon on September 1st in any calendar year, the locator must file in the next full calendar year a notice of intention to hold, because no assessment work requirement has yet arisen.” Sherwood, Mining-claim Recordation and Prospecting under The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976,23 Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Institute I, 25 (1977) (footnotes omitted).

 United States v. Clark, 445 U. S. 23, 27 (1980).

 Escambia County v. McMillan, 466 U. S. 48, 51 (1984) (per curiam); see also Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 347 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring).

 S. Rep. No. 94-583, p. 65 (1975). The Court agrees regarding the first purpose, but inexplicably and without citation concludes that another purpose of § 814 is “to provide federal land managers with up-to-date information that allows them to make informed management decisions.” Ante, at 87. This latter statutory “purpose” is not mentioned in the legislative history; rather, it is a variation of a “purpose,” equally without citation, offered by appellants. See Brief for Appellants 45, 47.

 See n. 3, supra.

 See 43 U. S. C. § 1744(a)(2).

 Title 43 CFR § 3833.0-5(m) (1984) provides:
“ ‘Filed or file’ means being received and date stamped by the proper BLM office. For the purpose of complying with § 3833.2-1 of this title, ‘timely filed’ means being filed within the time period prescribed by law, or received by January 19th after the period prescribed by law in an envelope bearing a clearly dated postmark affixed by the United States Postal Service within the period prescribed by law. This 20 day period does not apply to a notice of location filed pursuant to §3833.1-2 of this title. (See § 1821.2-2(e) of this title where the last day falls on a date the office is closed.)”

 43 CFR § 3833.2-1(b)(1) (1984). It is undisputed that the regulations did not come to the attention of the appellees. To justify the forfeiture in this case on the ground that appellees are chargeable with constructive notice of the contents of the Federal Register is no more acceptable to me today than it would have been to Justice Jackson in 1947. “To my mind, it is an absurdity to hold that every farmer who insures his crops knows what the Federal Register contains or even knows that there is such a publication. If he were to peruse this voluminous and dull publication as it is issued from time to time in order to make sure whether anything has been promulgated that affects his rights, he would never need crop insurance, for he would never get time to plant any crops.” Federal Crop Insurance Corporation v. Merrill, 332 U. S. 380, 387 (1947) (Jackson, J., dissenting).

 The Court, ante, at 102-103, n. 14, criticizes my citation of the BLM regulations to demonstrate that the agency has itself departed from the “plain” statutory language by allowing mail filings to be received by January 19th. In the same breath, the Court acknowledges that the agency is not bound by the “plain” language in “administering the statute.” Ibid. The mail-delivery deadline makes it clear that the Court’s judicially created “up-to-date” statutory purpose is utterly lacking in foundation. The agency’s adoption of the January 19 deadline illustrates that it does not need the information by December 30; that it is not bound by the language of the provision; and that substantial compliance does not interfere with the agency’s statutory functions or with the intent of Congress.

 Several amici have filed materials listing numerous cases in which it is asserted that the Bureau is using every technical construction of the statute to suck up active mining claims much as a vacuum cleaner, if not watched closely, will suck up jewelry or loose money. See Brief for Mountain States Legal Foundation as Amicus Curiae 2 (claiming that an “overwhelming number of mining claims have been lost to the pitfalls of section 814”), 3 (claiming that from 1977 to 1984 “unpatented mining claimants lost almost 20,000 active locations due to the technical rigors and conclusive presumption of section 814”); App. 1-86 (listing cases); Brief for Alaska Miners Association, California Mining Association, Nevada Mining Association, Miners Advocacy Council, and Placer Miners Association as Amici Curiae, Exhibit A (letter from Bureau’s Utah State Office stating that well over 1,400 claims were invalidated from 1979-1983 because § 1744(a)(1) filings were made on December 31), Exhibit B (letter from Bureau’s Billings, Montana Office stating that 198 claims were invalidated from 1979-1983 because § 1744(a)(1) filings were made on December 31), Exhibit C (letter from Bureau’s Wyoming State Office stating that 11 claims were invalidated in 1980-1982 because § 1744(a)(2) filings were made on December 31), Exhibit D (letter from Bureau’s Arizona State Office stating that “approximately 500 claims have been invalidated due to filing an affidavit one day late”); Brief for Mobil Oil Corporation as Amicus Curiae 2-4 (claiming to be in a situation similar to the appellees’). According to the Bureau’s own calculations, thousands of active mining claims have been terminated because filings made on December 31 were considered untimely. These representations confirm the picture painted by amici of a federal bureaucracy virtually running amok, and surely operating contrary to the intent of Congress, by terminating the valuable property rights of hardworking, productive citizens of our country.

 S. Rep. No. 94-583, p. 65 (1975).

 The Court suggests that appellees’ failure to file by December 30 “caused the property right to be extinguished.” Ante, at 107. However, the Court, on the one hand, carefully avoids mentioning the 3-month period that elapsed after December 31 before the Bureau declared the appellees’ mining claims abandoned, and, on the other hand, describes the Bureau as needing “up-to-date information that allows them to make informed land management decisions.” Ante, at 87, 107.

 The Court, ante, at 96-97, n. 12, lists several provisions in the United States Code as supportive of its position that “prior to December 31” is somehow less ambiguous because of its occasional use in various statutory provisions. It then states that it “is unclear whether the arguments advanced by the dissenters are meant to apply to all of the provisions, or only to some of them.” Ibid. However, the provisions cited for support illustrate the lack of justification for the Court’s approach, and highlight the uniqueness of the provision in this case. Eleven of the provisions refer to a one-time specific date; the provision at issue here requires specific action *126on a continual annual basis, thus involving a much greater risk of creating a trap for the unwary. Further, each of the specific dates mentioned in the 11 provisions is long past; thus, contrary to the Court’s premise, this decision would have no effect on them because they require no future action. See 7 U. S. C. § 609(b)(5) (“prior to December 31, 1937”); 12 U. S. C. § 1709)(o)(1)(E) (“prior to December 31, 1976”); 12 U. S. C. § 1823(g) (“prior to December 31, 1950”); 12 U. S. C. § 1841(a)(5)(A) (“prior to December 31, 1970”); 26 U. S. C. § 503(d)(1) (“prior to December 31, 1955”); 33 U. S. C. § 1319(a)(5)(B) (“prior to December 31, 1974”); 42 U. S. C. § 415(a)(7)(E)(ii) (1982 ed., Supp. III) (“prior to December 31, 1983”); 42 U. S. C. § 1962d-17(b) (“prior to December 31, 1969”); 42 U. S. C. § 5614 (b)(5) (“after the first year following October 3, 1977, prior to December 31”); 42 U. S. C. § 7502(a)(2) (“prior to December 31, 1982”); 42 U. S. C. § 7521(b)(2) (“prior to December 31, 1970”); 50 U. S. C. App. § 1741(b)(1) (“prior to December 31, 1946”). The remaining provision cited as authority by the Court, 22 U. S. C. § 3784(c), states that the Panama Canal and certain other property “shall not be transferred to the Republic of Panama prior to December 31, 1999.” The legislative history indicates that that language was added to make “clear that the President is not authorized to accelerate the final transfer of the Panama Canal in 1999, as provided by the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 96-473, p. 61 (1979). The Panama Canal Treaty of 1977, Art. II, indicates that it “shall terminate at noon, Panama time, December 31, 1999.” Therefore, the language of § 3784(c) was tailored to a unique treaty provision.

 573 F. Supp. 472, 479 (Nev. 1983).

 Id., at 474.

 lbid.

 43 U. S. C. § 1744(b).

 Reply Brief for Appellants 13, n. 12.

 Affidavit of Laura C. Locke ¶ 3.

 Brief for Appellants 45.