State of California, Ex Rel. State Lands Commission v. United States of America, Donald P. Hodel, Secretary of the Interior, Sierra Club, Intervenors

The State of California appeals from a judgment awarding the United States title to land exposed by the recession of Mono Lake. California argues that the district court erred in 1) adopting federal rather than state law as the rule of decision to determine the ownership of the exposed lake bed; 2) applying the law of reliction to the recession of Mono Lake; 3) selecting the methodology to be used in determining whether the recession of the Lake has been “gradual and imperceptible” for purposes of the reliction doctrine; and 4) granting intervention to the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. We affirm all of the district court’s challenged rulings and uphold its judgment in favor of the United States.

I. FACTS

Mono Lake is a navigable lake that lies at the bottom of the Mono Basin immediately east of the Sierra Nevada in eastern California. All drainage in the Mono Basin flows toward the Lake; no outlet streams exist.

The United States owns approximately seventy percent of the uplands surrounding Mono Lake. The federal lands were withdrawn from the public domain in the early 1930’s in order to protect the watershed and to preserve the land for grazing,…