Los Angeles & Salt Lake R. v. United States

Appellant, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad Company, 1 a Utah corporation doing business in California, executed and delivered to appellee, the United States, two deeds — one, hereafter called the 1908 deed, dated July 3, 1908, and one, hereafter called the 1918 deed, dated December 13, 1918. In 1941 a controversy arose between appellant and appellee with respect to appellee’s rights under the deeds. To settle the controversy, appellee brought an action against appellant under § 274d of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C.A. § 400 , and obtained a declaratory judgment therein. This appeal is from that judgment.

The pertinent parts of the 1908 deed are these:

“ * * * [Appellant] does hereby grant to [appellee] for the construction, maintenance and use of a free public navigable channel or waterway only, that certain parcel of land situated in [the] * * * County of Los Angeles, State of California, particularly described as follows, to-wit: [Here follows a description of the parcel of land — a strip of land 400 feet wide and about 6,800 feet long],

“To have and to hold to [appellee], as and for the purposes of a free, public, navigable channel, and subject for such purposes to the…