Chapman v. USA, Secretary of Ag

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES CO URT O F APPEALS
August 2, 2006
FO R TH E TENTH CIRCUIT Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
C OLIN CH A PM A N ,
Plaintiff/Counterclaim-
Defendant/Appellant,
No. 04-1331
v. (D.C. No. 00-M W -2358-(OES))
(D . Colo.)
A SH EL A . D EN M A N ; G EO RGE
M CC ULLO UGH; M . S.
M CCULLOUGH, and any and all
unknown persons who claim any
interest in the subject matter of this
action,
Defendants/Crossclaim-
Defendants,
and
U N ITED STA TES O F A M ER ICA,
Defendant/Crossclaim-Plaintiff/
Counterclaim-Plaintiff/
Appellee,
and
SECRETARY OF AGR ICU LTURE;
UNITED STA TES FO REST
SERVICE,
Defendants-Appellees.
OR D ER AND JUDGM ENT *
Before BR ISC OE, M cKA Y, and BROR BY, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff and counterclaim defendant, Colin Chapman, appeals from an
order of a United M agistrate Judge 1 granting summary judgment in favor of
defendants the United States of America, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the
United States Forest Service on his claims for record title and adverse possession,
and in favor of the United States on its counterclaim for record title. W e affirm.
Background
The property at issue in this case is an approximate ten-acre patented
mining claim known as the Puzzler Lode M ining Claim (Puzzler). It is located in
the M aroon Bells-Snowmass W ilderness Area of the W hite River N ational Forest,
about ten miles south of Aspen, in Pitkin County, Colorado.
*
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously to grant the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral
argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore
ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding
precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and
collateral estoppel. The court generally disfavors the citation of orders and
judgments; nevertheless, an order and judgment may be cited under the terms and
conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
1
The parties consented to the exercise of jurisdiction by a magistrate judge.
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The undisputed, material facts concerning the Puzzler began more than one
hundred years ago with a location certificate recorded in 1881, and the issuance
of a patent in 1893. W hen the owners failed to pay the property taxes, the Pitkin
County Treasurer offered the Puzzler at a tax sale on December 16, 1901.
Because there were no bidders, the Puzzler was struck off to Pitkin County
through a treasurer’s certificate of purchase.
In M ay 1954, the Pitkin County Treasurer issued a Notice of Purchase of
Real Estate at Tax Sale and of Application for Issuance of Treasurer’s Deed for
the Puzzler. A treasurer’s deed for the Puzzler was issued to the Pitkin County
Board of County Commissioners (BOCC), and recorded on June 16, 1954. 2
In July 1976, Pitkin County passed and recorded a resolution concerning
numerous mining claims that it had obtained by treasurer’s deeds, including the
Puzzler. The resolution recognized that the claims w ere located within the W hite
River National Forest and stated that they were “useful and necessary for present
public open space and parks and recreation.” A plt. App. at 288. And in July
1988, based on numerous “wild deeds” 3 being filed on county-owned mining
2
Pitkin County continued to own the Puzzler until 1994 when it was
conveyed to the United States. From 1954 through 1994, no property taxes were
assessed because county-owned property is tax exempt. Colo. Rev. Stat.
§ 39-3-105.
3
A “wild deed” is defined as “[a] recorded deed that is not in the chain of
title . . . .” Black’s Law Dictionary 446 (8th ed. 2004).
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claims, the County recorded a Public N otice in the records asserting its ownership
of numerous properties, including the Puzzler.
Plaintiff’s chain of title began in July 1979, when a “wild deed” was
recorded purporting to convey the Puzzler and several other mining claims from
The Denver & Colorado Investment Company to the Aspen-W estern Corporation.
Shortly after recording the “wild deed,” the Aspen-W estern Corporation purported
to convey the Puzzler to Stefan, M argaret and Everett Albouy (Albouys), who
recorded the deed in October 1979. On July 14, 1991, the Albouys conveyed the
Puzzler by quit claim deed to plaintiff, who paid nothing for it and who agreed to
hold the Puzzler for the Albouys. Five days after receiving the quit claim deed
from the Albouys, plaintiff filed a quiet title lawsuit in Pitkin County District
Court concerning the Puzzler, and named the BOCC as a defendant.
In M ay 1994, Congress enacted the Exchange Act, Public Law No.
103-255, 108 Stat. 684 (1994), pursuant to which Pitkin County agreed to
exchange certain lands, including the Puzzler, for a 230-acre parcel owned by the
United States. As part of the exchange, the County conveyed the Puzzler to the
United States by a quit claim deed, which was recorded on August 17, 1994. The
Puzzler then became part of the W hite River National Forest. In December 1994,
plaintiff and the BOCC filed a stipulated motion to dismiss the state court quiet
title action without prejudice. Plaintiff filed his federal court quiet title action
against the United States in November 2000.
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In October 2002, the Pitkin County Treasurer issued a correction deed to
correct the 1954 treasurer’s deed, which failed to reflect the date the 1901 tax sale
was comm enced, and which also failed to contain a recital explaining why the tax
sale was held late. Specifically, historical records were uncovered that
established the date of sale as December 16, 1901, and the corrected deed stated
that the sale commenced late because of “[l]ack of office help and time for the
preparation and publication of the notice in the newspaper.” Aplt. A pp. at 228.
To cure any cloud on the title, the County executed another quit claim deed to the
United States on January 22, 2003.
Standard of Review
The Quiet Title Act permits law suits against the federal government “to
adjudicate a disputed title to real property in which the United States claims an
interest . . .” 28 U.S.C. § 2409a(a). Although the parties’ respective claims arise
under a federal statute, questions involving real property rights are determined by
state law unless federal law requires a different result. Oregon ex rel. State Land
Board v. Corvallis Sand & Gravel Co., 429 U.S. 363, 378-81 (1977); United
States v. O’Block, 788 F.2d 1433, 1435 (10th Cir. 1986); Amoco Prod. Co. v.
United States, 619 F.2d 1383, 1389 n. 4 (10th Cir. 1980).
W e review the district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing
the evidence and drawing the reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most
favorable to the nonmoving party. Gossett v. Okla. ex rel. Bd. of Regents for
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Langston Univ., 245 F.3d 1172, 1175 (10th Cir. 2001). Summary judgment is
appropriate if there are no genuine issues of material fact and the moving party is
entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id. at 1175. W hen applying Colorado
law , the district court should ascertain and apply the state law to reach the result
the Colorado Supreme Court would reach if faced with the same question.
Cooperm an v. David, 214 F.3d 1162, 1164 (10th Cir. 2000). W e also review the
district court’s application of state law de novo. Id.
Record Title
Under Colorado law, “a plaintiff in a quiet title action . . . bears the burden
of establishing title in the property superior to that of the defendant . . . [and] the
plaintiff must rely on the strength of his own title rather than on the weakness in
or lack of title in [the] defendant[].” Hutson Agric. Ditch & Reservoir Co.,
723 P.2d 736, 738 (Colo. 1986) (internal quotation omitted).
Plaintiff argues that the district court erred when it determined that the
1954 tax deed should be reformed to reflect the date of the sale as December 16,
1901, and that the reason for the untimely sale was the lack of sufficient
personnel. His theory is that the treasurer’s deed is void and that his chain of
title, which begans with a “wild deed” in 1979, is superior to that of the United
States. W e disagree. In nearly identical factual circumstances, the Colorado
Supreme Court held that extrinsic evidence may be used to reform technical
defects in a treasurer’s deed, and the reformed deed relates back to the original
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deed. Board of County C omm’rs v. Timroth, 87 P.3d 102, 108-09 (Colo. 2004).
The evidence submitted by the United States in support of reformation was never
disputed by plaintiff. As such, the district court properly entered an order
reforming the deed.
Here, the undisputed material facts establish that the United States, which
can trace its chain of title back to the location certificate recorded in 1881, has
superior record title to the Puzzler over plaintiff, whose chain of title begins in
1979 with the recording of a “wild deed.”
Adverse Possession
Although the Quiet Title Act permits lawsuits against the federal
government to adjudicate disputed title to real property in which the United States
claims an interest, it contains the prohibition that “[n]othing in this section shall
be construed to permit suits against the U nited States based upon adverse
possession.” 28 U.S.C. § 2409a(n). Plaintiff argues that the prohibition does not
apply if he or his predecessors in interest, the Albouys, acquired title to the
Puzzler by adverse possession before the U nited States first claimed an interest 4
in the property in 1994. The district court disagreed, and held that the clear and
4
Plaintiff argues alternatively that the prohibition does not apply until the
United States obtains good title to the property. This is contrary to our prior
cases interpreting the Quiet Title Act and the requirement that the United States
need only claim an interest in the property to trigger the Act’s limitation
provision. Knapp v. United States, 636 F.2d 279, 282 (10th Cir. 1980); Stubbs v.
United States, 620 F.2d 775, 781 (10th Cir. 1980).
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unambiguous language of the statute barred his claim for adverse possession,
regardless of when the claim may have accrued.
Assuming for argument that a plaintiff may base a quiet title claim on a
claim of adverse possession that has ripened into title prior to the United States
claiming an interest in the property, there are no facts to support such a claim in
this case. Admittedly, the district court did not reach this conclusion in its
decision because it found that plaintiff’s adverse possession claims were barred.
Nonetheless, we may “affirm a grant of summary judgment on grounds other than
those relied on by the district court when the record contains an adequate and
independent basis for that result.” Terra Venture, Inc. v. JDN Real Estate-
Overland Park, L.P., 443 F.3d 1240, 1243 (10th Cir. 2006) (quotation marks and
citation omitted).
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 38-41-101(1) provides for adverse possession where a
plaintiff and/or his predecessors in interest have been in possession of property
for more than eighteen years. The possession must be: (1) actual; (2) adverse;
(3)hostile; (4) under claim of right; (5) exclusive; and (6) uninterrupted. See
generally Salazar v. Terry, 911 P.2d 1086, 1089, n. 4 (Colo. 1996).
Plaintiff claims that his adverse possession of the Puzzler began in 1979,
when the Albouys recorded their deed. Setting aside the fact that plaintiff has
failed to prove adverse possession under Colorado law, by his own admission the
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alleged adverse possession could not have ripened into title until 1997, which is
three years after the United States first claimed an interest in the Puzzler.
Further, to avoid the consequences of Colo. Rev. Stat. § 38-41-101(2),
which provides that a party cannot adversely possess against a county, plaintiff
argues that Pitkin County never owned the Puzzler until 2004 when the district
court entered its order reforming the treasurer’s deed. To the contrary, the
reformed deed was retroactive to 1954, and from that point forward the Puzzler
was owned by the County, against whom no claim for adverse possession lies.
Timroth, 87 P.3d at 108-09.
Likew ise, plaintiff’s claim of title to the Puzzler pursuant to Colorado’s
seven-year adverse possession statute also fails. Colo. Rev. Stat. §38-41-109
requires, among other things, the payment of all taxes legally assessed for seven
successive years, under color of title made in good faith. Our consideration of
this claim is resolved by the fact that there is nothing in the record that plaintiff
ever paid any taxes on the Puzzler.
Conclusion
Based on the foregoing undisputed material facts, the district court
correctly found that the United States was entitled to summary judgment on
plaintiff’s claims for record title and adverse possession. The court also correctly
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entered summary judgment in favor of the United States on its counterclaim for
record title to the Puzzler. The judgment of the district court is AFFIRM ED.
Entered for the Court
W ade Brorby
Circuit Judge
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