State v. United States

This case involves a dispute between a state government and the federal government over title to the beds of three rivers. The issues arise under the Quiet Title Act.

FACTS

Judgment was on the pleadings, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c), so we take the facts as pleaded.

Three remote Alaskan rivers are at issue, the Kandik, Nation and Black. They are about 200 miles east and a little north of Fairbanks, Alaska, near the border with the Yukon Territory. Alaska was admitted to the Union as a state on January 3, 1959. Navigability as of that date determines which government owns the riverbed. If the river was navigable at statehood, then the state owns the bed; if not, the federal government owns it. It is undisputed that when the Union was created, each of the thirteen original states retained title to the lands covered by navigable waters, and that under the “equal footing doctrine” each new state succeeds upon statehood to the federal interest in these lands. The Submerged Lands Act gave Alaska title to the beds of navigable rivers on January 3,1959.

The State of Alaska pleads that the three rivers were navigable at statehood. The United States does not deny the…