United States of America, Plaintiff-Counterdefendant-Appellee v. Helen Pappas, Defendant-Counterclaimant-Appellant

Pappas appeals from judgment quieting title in the United States to lands omitted from an original government survey. The plat prepared from the survey indicates that Pappas’s land borders on the Snake River. Because the judgment does not provide Pappas riverfront, we reverse.

Background

In 1955, the Government conveyed Lot 2 to Pappas. The patent described Lot 2 as

Sec. 22, Lot 2.

The area described contains 39.75 acres, according to the official plat of the survey of the said land, on file in the Bureau of Land Management.

The official plat (“the 1874 plat”) was prepared by the Government based on John B. David’s 1874 survey. Lot 2 lies in the southeast corner of the northwest quarter-section of section 22, Township 10 South, Range 24 East Boise Meridian, in Cassia County, Idaho.

The Snake River runs through the northwest quartersection on a course roughly northeast to southwest. Because David mistakenly located the left bank of the River southeast of the actual river bank, the 1874 plat omitted a strip of land between the actual bank and the record meander line. According to the erroneous meander line, the River “cut off” one quarter acre from the northwest corner of Lot…