United States v. Edward M. Claridge and Kay T. Claridge, His Wife and State of Arizona Ex Rel. Obed M. Lassen

This action was instituted by the United States to quiet title to lands located on the Arizona side of the Colorado River in the Palo Verde Valley. Judgment of the District Court was rendered in favor of the United States. 279 F.Supp. 87 (D.Ariz.1967). From that judgment the defendants and the State of Arizona, as intervenor, have appealed. They assert that the lands in question are not in the public domain but that title thereto passed to the State of Arizona upon its becoming a state in 1912. They contend that at that time the lands were in the bed of the Colorado River and remained there until the construction of Hoover Dam in 1935 reduced the width of the river.

The facts are fully stated in the opinion of the District Court. For the purposes of this appeal it is sufficient to state that appellants’ theory is founded on the mistaken assumption that the annual spring floods of the river (suffered prior to the advent of Hoover Dam), which covered the valley from bluff to bluff, constituted its “ordinary high water” and that the valley, from bluff to bluff, thus constituted the bed of the river. By eliminating these floods, appellants contend, the Hoover Dam caused an avulsive…