United States v. Old Dominion Boat Club , 630 F.3d 1039 ( 2011 )


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  •  United States Court of Appeals
    FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
    Argued October 20, 2010           Decided January 11, 2011
    No. 09-5363
    UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
    APPELLANT
    v.
    OLD DOMINION BOAT CLUB,
    APPELLEE
    Consolidated with 09-5369
    Appeals from the United States District Court
    for the District of Columbia
    (Nos. 1:73-cv-01903 & 1:73-cv-02211)
    Kathryn E. Kovacs, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,
    argued the cause for appellant. With her on the briefs was
    Michael T. Gray, Attorney. David C. Shilton, Attorney,
    entered an appearance.
    Hugh Nugent argued the cause for appellee Old
    Dominion Boat Club. With him on the brief were Paul J.
    Kiernan and Harry P. Hart.
    2
    Before: TATEL, GARLAND, and KAVANAUGH, Circuit
    Judges.
    Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.
    TATEL, Circuit Judge: Through this action to quiet title to
    certain “filled,” i.e., reclaimed, lands lying on the bed of the
    Potomac River, the United States seeks to secure public
    access to the Alexandria, Virginia, waterfront. Defendant, the
    Old Dominion Boat Club, is an Alexandria private social club
    the bulk of whose property lies on that filled land. The
    district court held that despite the United States’ ownership of
    the riverbed, Old Dominion had not trespassed nor was it
    obligated to provide public access because, as a riparian
    owner abutting District of Columbia waters, it had the right to
    lay fill and build wharves. Since binding circuit precedent
    recognizes just such a right, we affirm.
    I.
    In 1632, King Charles I granted a charter for Maryland to
    Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore. That grant included the bed
    of the Potomac River, thus establishing the boundary line
    between Maryland and Virginia at the Virginia shore. See
    Morris v. United States, 
    174 U.S. 196
    , 223, 225 (1899). A
    century and a half later, in 1791, Maryland, having succeeded
    to title from Lord Baltimore following the Revolutionary
    War, ceded a portion of its territory, including a piece of the
    riverbed, to the United States for formation of a seat of
    government pursuant to Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the
    Constitution. 
    Id. at 230
    . Although Virginia also ceded
    territory on its side of the river, including Alexandria, the
    1791 high-water mark became the District’s border and
    marked the edge of the federally owned riverbed when the
    United States retroceded Alexandria to Virginia in 1846. Act
    of July 9, 1846, § 1, 
    9 Stat. 35
    , 35–36. In 1945, Congress
    3
    moved the boundary to the then-existing high-water mark but
    clarified that “[n]othing in this Act shall be construed as
    relinquishing any right, title, or interest of the United States to
    the lands lying between the mean high-water mark as it
    existed January 24, 1791, and the boundary line as [now
    established].” See Act of Oct. 31, 1945, Pub. L. No. 79-208,
    §§ 101, 103, 
    59 Stat. 552
    , 552.
    Early in the twentieth century, Old Dominion, formed as
    a private social club in 1880, purchased two adjacent parcels
    on the Alexandria waterfront. Both parcels occupy reclaimed
    lands filled after 1791. Old Dominion operates a private
    clubhouse and marina on one of the parcels and a private
    parking lot on the other. Both are fenced.
    In 1973, the United States commenced this action against
    thirty-four Alexandria riparian owners pursuant to two
    statutes that authorize the Attorney General to bring quiet title
    actions against parcels of dry or submerged land in the
    District of Columbia. Act of April 27, 1912, Pub. L. No. 62-
    138 § 1, 
    37 Stat. 93
    ; Pub. L. No. 79-208 § 103. Claiming
    ownership of all filled and submerged lands on the District of
    Columbia side of the 1791 high-water mark, the government
    argued that those riparian owners, including Old Dominion
    and its predecessors in interest, had no right to fill the land at
    issue. Praying for neither trespass damages nor ejection, the
    government seeks only to establish public access to the
    Alexandria waterfront, or, at the very least, a public view of
    the waterfront. See Recording of Oral Arg. at 28:35–28:55
    (describing that if “you’re walking down” toward the water
    by Old Dominion’s parcel “you can’t see anything because on
    one side there’s a privacy fence and on the other side there is
    a parking lot with a chain link fence”). Most of the thirty-four
    defendants settled, agreeing to some degree of public access.
    4
    Old Dominion and three other defendants, owning a total of
    seven parcels, have continued to defend the lawsuit.
    Old Dominion filed a motion for summary judgment,
    which the district court granted. United States v. Robertson
    Terminal Warehouse, Inc., 
    575 F. Supp. 2d 210
    , 213 (D.D.C.
    2008). The district court began its analysis with a threshold
    question: who owns the riverbed beneath Old Dominion’s
    filled parcels? The court concluded that the United States
    holds “fee title” to the bed of the Potomac River to the 1791
    high-water mark, including Old Dominion’s parcels. The
    United States’ “fee title” is “subject to a public trust for
    navigation and fishery, and the United States cannot use or
    dispose of the bed of the Potomac River in such a way that
    would interfere with this trust.” 
    Id. at 216
    . The district court
    also held that Old Dominion had never gained title to the
    filled riverbed via the doctrine of accretion, which “refers to
    the increase of riparian land by the gradual deposit, by water,
    of solid material . . . so as to cause that to become dry land
    which was before covered by water.” 
    Id. at 219
     (explaining
    that accretion “does not refer to the purposeful addition of
    land to waterfront property through laying fill and
    construction of wharves”).
    The district court next considered whether Old Dominion
    and its predecessors in interest, as riparian owners, had the
    right to lay fill and build wharves. Reviewing applicable law,
    the district court held that Old Dominion had such a right,
    meaning that its fill and wharves were non-trespassory and
    that it had exclusive possessory rights to both. Robertson
    Terminal Warehouse, Inc., 
    575 F. Supp. 2d at
    219–29.
    According to the district court, this conclusion was driven by
    three decisions of this court, United States v. Belt, 
    142 F.2d 761
     (D.C. Cir. 1944), United States v. Martin, 
    177 F.2d 733
    5
    (D.C. Cir. 1949), and Martin v. Standard Oil Co. of N.J., 
    198 F.2d 523
     (D.C. Cir. 1952).
    The United States now appeals, arguing, among other
    things, that Belt, Martin, and Standard Oil are not binding.
    Our review is de novo. Hendricks v. Geithner, 
    568 F.3d 1008
    ,
    1011–12 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (“We review a district court’s
    granting of summary judgment de novo.”).
    II.
    Although neither party challenges the district court’s
    choice of law—Maryland law of 1801—we begin by
    explaining why that choice was correct. This case concerns
    Old Dominion’s riparian rights, and the scope of such rights is
    determined by the law of the sovereign having authority over
    the body of navigable water in question. See Weems
    Steamboat Co. of Baltimore v. People’s Steamboat Co., 
    214 U.S. 345
    , 355 (1909) (“The rights of a riparian owner upon a
    navigable stream in this country are governed by the law of
    the state in which the stream is situated.”); Shively v. Bowlby,
    
    152 U.S. 1
    , 26, 36–37 (1894) (same). Here the sovereign is
    the United States. See Morris, 
    174 U.S. at 230
    . When
    Congress accepted the given territories, however, it declared
    that Maryland law would continue to govern in the territories
    ceded by Maryland, Act of July 16, 1790, Ch. 28, § 1, 
    1 Stat. 130
    , 130, and then later when it created a judicial system for
    the District of Columbia in 1801, it provided that the laws of
    Maryland “as they now exist[] shall be and continue in force
    in that part of the said district, which was ceded by that state
    to the United States,” Act of Feb. 27, 1801, Ch. 15, § 1, 
    2 Stat. 103
    , 103–05. Thus, despite the fact that the plaintiff is
    the United States, the defendant is a private club in Virginia,
    and the year is 2011, the district court correctly held that
    “[r]iparian rights within the District of Columbia are governed
    by Maryland law as it existed in 1801.” Robertson Terminal
    6
    Warehouse, Inc., 
    575 F. Supp. 2d at 221
     (relying on Morris,
    
    174 U.S. at
    225–30).
    As noted above, in concluding that Old Dominion had the
    right to lay fill and build wharves, the district court relied on
    Belt, Martin, and Standard Oil (throughout this opinion we
    shall refer to these cases as the “Belt trio”). In each of those
    cases, we faced actions similar to the one we consider today,
    and in each we determined that Maryland recognized just
    such a right. Specifically, in Belt we noted in dicta that the
    rights of riparian owners include the right to “access . . . the
    navigable part of the [r]iver, with the right to make a landing,
    wharf, or pier, subject to such general rules and regulations as
    the State may think proper for the protection of the public.”
    142 F.2d at 767. In reaching this conclusion, we relied on the
    Maryland Court of Appeals decision in Baltimore & Ohio
    Railroad Co. v. Chase, in which that court described riparian
    rights as follows:
    [I]n addition to [the] right by reliction or accretion,
    the riparian proprietor, whose land is bounded by a
    navigable river, whether his title extends beyond the
    dry land or not, has the right of access to the
    navigable part of the river from the front of his lot,
    and the right to make a landing, wharf or pier for his
    own use, or for the use of the public, subject to such
    general rules and regulations as the Legislature may
    think proper to prescribe for the protection of the
    rights of the public, whatever those rights may be.
    
    43 Md. 23
    , 35 (1875). Citing Belt, we expressly held in
    Martin that “[a]n owner of riparian land . . . has a qualified
    right to make fills and build wharves in the river.” 177 F.2d
    at 734 (internal quotation marks omitted). We reached the
    7
    same conclusion in Standard Oil, relying on both Belt and
    Chase. 
    198 F.2d at 526
    .
    Because these holdings definitively dictate the scope of
    Old Dominion’s rights, this appeal turns entirely on whether
    they are in fact binding. Although a panel of this court is
    generally bound by our earlier decisions, Davis v. U.S. Dep’t
    of Justice, 
    610 F.3d 750
    , 753 (D.C. Cir. 2010), the
    government argues that we are not so bound here because the
    Belt trio is inconsistent with (1) subsequent Maryland law and
    (2) older circuit precedent.
    Beginning with the government’s first argument, we
    agree that because the Maryland Court of Appeals serves as
    the ultimate arbiter of Maryland law, we must depart from our
    precedent if subsequent decisions of that court make clear that
    the interpretation of Maryland law set forth in our prior
    opinions is wrong. See, e.g., Jaworowski v. Ciasulli, 
    490 F.3d 331
    , 332 n.1 (3d Cir. 2007) (“[W]hen we are applying state
    law we are, of course, free to reexamine the validity of our
    state law interpretation based on subsequent decisions of the
    state supreme court.” (internal quotation marks omitted));
    Woodling v. Garrett Corp., 
    813 F.2d 543
    , 557 (2d Cir. 1987)
    (same). The government argues that this is just such a case
    because, according to it, decisions of the Maryland Court of
    Appeals subsequent to the Belt trio make clear that Chase, on
    which all three decisions rest, was wrong when it stated that
    Marylanders had common law rights to lay fill and build
    wharves. Instead, the government argues, such rights derive
    only from statute, and no applicable statute existed in 1801.
    Although we agree that no applicable statute existed in 1801,
    we disagree that post-Belt Maryland decisions undermine
    Chase. Not only has the Maryland Court of Appeals
    continued to rely on Chase for exactly the principle quoted
    above, see White v. Pines Cmty. Improvement Ass’n, 
    939 A.2d
                                8
    165, 166–67 (Md. 2008) (citing Chase approvingly,
    characterizing it as a description of “the common law of
    riparian rights”), but nothing in the three subsequent
    Maryland cases on which the government relies definitively
    establishes that no right to fill and wharf existed at common
    law as of 1801.
    In the first of the cases the government cites, People’s
    Counsel v. Maryland Marine Manufacturing Co., the
    Maryland Court of Appeals did indeed say that it “ha[d] held
    that the right to build a wharf or other structure into the water
    can be derived only from a grant or permission of the State,
    because virtually all land under water belongs to the State.”
    
    560 A.2d 32
    , 37 (Md. 1989). The other two cases, Worton
    Creek Marina and Harbor Island Marina, say essentially the
    same thing. See Worton Creek Marina, LLC v. Claggett, 
    850 A.2d 1169
    , 1174 (Md. 2004) (“At common law, ‘the
    fundamental riparian right—on which all others depend[ed]
    . . . —[was] access to water.’ . . . [S]tatutory rights include the
    right to make improvements into the water in front of riparian
    property.” (quoting People’s Counsel, 560 A.2d at 37));
    Harbor Island Marina, Inc. v. Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs, 
    407 A.2d 738
    , 745 (Md. 1979) (“[T]here have sporadically been
    legislative enactments recognizing, expanding, and redefining
    the rights and privileges [of] riparian owners . . . . Of
    particular importance to this case was the inclusion as a
    riparian right of the privilege to make improvements into the
    water by the riparian owner from his property.”). In our view,
    however, these cases do not support the government’s
    argument that Maryland riparian owners had no right at
    common law to lay fill and build wharves. Rather, the cases
    indicate the possibility that Maryland courts once recognized
    a right to “wharf out” incident to the paramount riparian right
    of access to the navigable waters, but that whatever common
    law rights may have existed were preempted by a series of
    9
    Maryland statutes enacted in the eighteenth and nineteenth
    centuries.
    In People’s Counsel, the Maryland Court of Appeals, far
    from rejecting Chase as aberrant, cast it as a decision that
    recognized the right to fill and build as a means of access, and
    the court cited Maryland cases both confirming and
    contradicting the existence of such a right. See People’s
    Counsel, 560 A.2d at 37 n.5. In Worton Creek, the Court of
    Appeals again emphasized the importance of access and then
    discussed statutory improvement rights solely as they related
    to the building of waterfowl hunting blinds—a riparian use
    unrelated to access to navigable waters. Worton Creek, 850
    A.2d at 1174–75. Although nothing in either decision
    explicitly makes this distinction between the right to wharf as
    an independent right—as discussed by the parties in this
    case—and the narrower right incident to access, the latter
    concept is well-established. See 1 Henry Philip Farnham, The
    Law of Waters and Water Rights 279 (1904) (“[T]he right of
    access . . . includes the right to erect wharves to reach the
    navigable portion of the stream.”); see also United States v.
    River Rouge Improvement Co., 
    269 U.S. 411
    , 418 (1926)
    (explaining that, as a matter of general common law, a
    riparian owner had a right of access and could, where not
    otherwise forbidden, “construct landings, wharves or piers for
    this purpose”). This distinction between access and non-
    access-related improvements may not reconcile the entire
    body of Maryland case law on this issue, but, at the very least,
    it calls into question the government’s assertion that the Belt
    trio, to the extent it relies on Chase, is inconsistent with
    subsequent Maryland cases.
    To support its argument that Chase was incorrectly
    decided, the government also relies on the series of Maryland
    statutes that gradually extended the right to lay fill and wharf
    10
    out to additional riparian lands.            According to the
    government, Harbor Island, Worton Creek, and People’s
    Counsel confirm that these statutes created rights that had not
    existed at common law and that Maryland riparian owners
    have no rights beyond those granted by statute. But we read
    these cases as demonstrating only that the Maryland
    legislature has preempted any common law that may have
    existed and therefore that today Maryland riparian owners
    have no rights beyond those granted them by statute. Critical
    to the issue before us, these cases say nothing about when that
    preemption may have occurred. Moreover, by characterizing
    Maryland statutes as “confer[ring] a right to construct
    improvements for purposes beyond mere access to the
    navigable portion of the water,” People’s Counsel suggests
    that the statutory rights represented an expansion—not an
    initial creation—of improvement rights. 560 A.2d at 38
    (emphasis added). Thus, nothing in Harbor Island, Worton
    Creek, or People’s Counsel contradicts the propositions
    underlying our Belt trio holdings—that some right to fill and
    build existed at common law, that these statutes expanded
    rather than created the right to fill and build wharves, and that
    as of 1801 they had yet to preempt the older common law
    rights.
    Having rejected the government’s claim that subsequent
    Maryland case law renders the Belt trio non-binding, we turn
    to the government’s alternative claim that the trio conflicts
    with prior circuit precedent. Again, we agree with the
    principle underlying the government’s argument—when a
    conflict exists within our own precedent, we are bound by the
    earlier decision. See Indep. Cmty. Bankers of Am. v. Bd. of
    Governors of the Fed. Reserve Sys., 
    195 F.3d 28
    , 34 (D.C.
    Cir. 1999) (“[W]hen faced with an intra-circuit conflict, a
    panel should follow earlier, settled precedent over a
    subsequent deviation therefrom.” (internal quotation marks
    11
    omitted)). Of course, courts must be careful when invoking
    this principle, lest they too readily discard a later precedent
    that distinguished—or is distinguishable from—an earlier
    decision. In any event, in this case we find no such
    inconsistency.
    The government cites three pre-Belt trio cases—two from
    this court and one from the Supreme Court. In the first,
    Marine Railway & Coal Co. v. United States, 
    265 F. 437
    (D.C. Cir. 1920), the United States sought ejection of a
    riparian owner in Virginia whose property abutted the
    federally owned portion of the Potomac and who had taken
    possession of land reclaimed during a federal dredging
    project. 
    Id.
     at 438–39. Ruling for the government, we held
    that the United States retains title to submerged lands covered
    by artificial fill and that the rights of riparian owners “must
    yield to commercial necessity.” Id. at 443. In other words, a
    riparian owner has no right to procedural due process or just
    compensation if its riparian rights—whatever those may be—
    have been cut off by federal efforts to preserve or improve the
    navigability of a waterway held by the federal government in
    the public trust. Id. Contrary to the government’s argument,
    Marine Railway, which says nothing about the scope of
    riparian rights where the federal government is acting for any
    purpose aside from promoting the navigability of waterways,
    is consistent with our later cases. As we explained in Martin,
    [a]n owner of riparian land . . . has a qualified right
    to make fills and build wharves in the river. But
    exercise of this qualified right does not affect the
    power of the United States with regard to navigation.
    ‘Structures in the bed of a navigable stream . . . may
    be injured or destroyed without compensation by a
    federal improvement of navigable capacity.’
    
    12 Martin, 177
     F.2d at 734 (quoting United States v. Chi.,
    Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pac. R.R. Co., 
    312 U.S. 592
    , 599
    (1941)) (internal citation omitted) (ellipses in original). True,
    Martin suggests that a riparian owner can, contrary to Marine
    Railway, obtain title to reclaimed lands, but title is not at issue
    in this appeal.       Accordingly, Marine Railway, which
    addresses the power of the United States to interfere with
    riparian rights to protect navigation, is consistent with the Belt
    trio, which makes clear that riparian rights are qualified by
    Congress’s “paramount power over the navigable waters of
    the United States in the regulation of commerce and
    navigation.” Belt, 142 F.2d at 767.
    We are similarly unpersuaded by the government’s
    discussion of the other two pre-Belt trio federal cases: Shively
    v. Bowlby, 
    152 U.S. 1
     (1894), and United States ex rel.
    Greathouse v. Hurley, 60 Wash. L. Rep. 162 (D.C. 1932),
    aff’d 
    63 F.2d 137
     (D.C. Cir.), aff’d sub nom. United States ex
    rel. Greathouse v. Dern, 
    289 U.S. 352
     (1933). Although
    Shively characterizes the right to wharf out and lay fill in
    Maryland as a statutory rather than a common law right, the
    case, decided in 1894, merely offers a contemporary
    assessment of riparian rights and thus says nothing about the
    state of Maryland law in 1801. Shively, 
    152 U.S. at
    23–24.
    The final decision, Greathouse, deals with a riparian owner’s
    request that the court compel the Secretary of War to grant a
    permit to build where no harbor line had been established.
    Greathouse, 63 F.2d at 138. In the Rivers and Harbors Act of
    1899, Congress had authorized the Secretary of War to draw
    such lines and had prohibited building without a permit either
    beyond those lines or where no such lines had been drawn.
    Act of Mar. 3, 1899 ch. 425, §§ 10–11, 
    30 Stat. 1121
    , 1151
    (codified at 
    33 U.S.C. §§ 401
    –404); 
    33 U.S.C. § 405
    (extending coverage of the Act to the Potomac River).
    Greathouse does not support the government’s argument. To
    13
    begin with, only the Supreme Court of the District of
    Columbia—a trial level court—actually reached the question
    of the scope of riparian rights under Maryland law of 1801.
    Moreover, although that court made some general statements
    about the nonexistence of common law rights to build, its
    holding dealt not with whether the riparian owner could build
    at all—the issue in this case—but with whether the owner had
    a vested right to build that could not, prior to building, be
    taken by Congressional action. Greathouse, 60 Wash. L. Rep.
    at 166. As we explained, supra at 11–12, the rights in
    question in this case are qualified—i.e., they are subject to
    congressional regulation. Indeed, the traditional common law
    rule was that where such rights existed, they vested only when
    exercised. See, e.g., Scranton v. Wheeler, 
    179 U.S. 141
    , 158
    (1900) (explaining that the qualified right of access to
    navigable waters, as manifested in the building of wharves, is
    a constitutionally protected property right that vests only
    when those wharves are built). Because Old Dominion has
    already exercised its rights, the trial court’s opinion in
    Greathouse is inapplicable. To be sure, the Supreme Court,
    considering the case on writ of certiorari, referred to the
    existence of the common law right in Maryland as “doubtful,”
    but it did so in the course of noting that mandamus is
    unavailable where the right in question is unclear.
    Greathouse, 
    289 U.S. at
    357–58. The existence of the
    Maryland common law right was one of a long list of
    uncertain propositions that would have to have been true to
    justify mandamus in that case. 
    Id.
    In conclusion, because the Belt trio is consistent with
    both subsequent Maryland case law and older federal case
    law, we are bound by its interpretation of Maryland law.
    14
    III.
    Alternatively, the government urges us to certify to the
    Maryland Court of Appeals the question of what rights Old
    Dominion has. See 
    Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 12
    -
    603 (authorizing the Maryland Court of Appeals to accept
    certified questions from federal courts). “In deciding whether
    to certify a case we look to whether local law is genuinely
    uncertain with respect to a dispositive question . . . . If,
    however, there is a discernible path for the court to follow,
    then we do not stop short of deciding the question.” Dial A
    Car, Inc. v. Transp., Inc., 
    132 F.3d 743
    , 746 (D.C. Cir. 1998)
    (internal citations and quotation marks omitted); see also 17A
    Charles Alan Wright et al., Federal Practice and Procedure §
    4248, at 502–07 (3d ed. 2007) (listing considerations relevant
    to the determination of whether to certify, including the
    frequency with which the question will come up, the practical
    limitations of the certification process, and the extent to which
    considerations of comity are relevant). Certification is thus
    inappropriate where, as here, we have examined state law and
    have found a “discernible path” that is consistent with our
    precedent.
    We are unwilling to certify this case for two additional
    reasons. First, because in the 1800s Maryland adopted a
    comprehensive statutory framework dealing with the right to
    wharf out, the state common-law rule at issue here has
    absolutely no applicability for any riparian land outside of the
    District of Columbia (and probably not even any applicability
    beyond the seven parcels at issue in this case, see Recording
    of Oral Arg. at 11:04–11:15, 13:34–14:10, 29:09–30:04). We
    cannot imagine why the Maryland Court of Appeals would
    want to spend its limited time on an issue of no consequence
    to the state of Maryland. Second, this case has been in
    litigation since 1973, and Maryland law is hardly uncertain
    enough to justify further delay.
    15
    For all these reasons we decline, as counsel for Old
    Dominion put it at oral argument, to “refer to Maryland courts
    a question of whether panels of this court in the mid-twentieth
    century misinterpreted the dictum of a Maryland nineteenth
    century case applying a mid-eighteenth century Maryland
    statute that modified sixteenth century common law.”
    Recording of Oral Arg. at 20:41–21:08. We affirm the
    district court’s grant of summary judgment for Old Dominion.
    So ordered.