Byrne

In this appeal, we consider whether the district court had jurisdiction over a quiet title and ejectment action and, if so, whether it properly determined that the property in question was located in the State of California. We conclude that the district court erred in dismissing the case for lack of jurisdiction and in fixing the title to the lands on the basis of river movements that occurred prior to 1905, when the United States patented the disputed lands to the State of California. We reverse and remand for further proceedings.

I

Richard Bangs once observed that “Wild rivers are earth’s renegades, defying gravity, dancing to their own tunes, resisting the authority of humans, always chipping away, and eventually always winning.”

In the early 1900’s, there were few better examples of this than the Colorado River, which flows for 1400 miles through the western United States before reaching the Gulf of California. It drains a 242,000 square mile area including parts of seven states: Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and California. There is a modest, triangular-shaped, 130-acre patch of land between Arizona and California, and the river runs…