UNITED STATES v. CALIFORNIA.
NO. 12, ORIGINAL.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 13–14, 1947.—Decided June 23, 1947.*
332 U.S. 19
Robert W. Kenny, then Attorney General of California, was for the defendant on its answer and other pleadings.
Attorney General Clark and Arnold Raum argued the cause for the United States. With them on the brief were Acting Solicitor General Washington, Assistant Attorney General Bazelon, Stanley M. Silverberg, J. Edward Williams, Robt. E. Mulroney, Robert M. Vaughan, Abraham J. Harris and Thomas L. McKevitt.
Fred N. Howser, Attorney General of California, and William W. Clary, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for the defendant. With them on the brief were C. Roy Smith, Assistant Attorney General, Homer Cummings, Max O‘Rell Truitt, Louis W. Myers and Jackson W. Chance.
By special leave of Court, Price Daniel, Attorney General of Texas, argued the cause for the National Association of Attorneys General, as amicus curiae, urging dismissal of the complaint. With him on the brief were Walter R. Johnson, Attorney General of Nebraska; Clarence A. Barnes, Attorney General of Massachusetts, Nathan B. Bidwell and George P. Drury, Assistant Attorneys General; Hugh S. Jenkins, Attorney General of Ohio; Fred S. LeBlanc, Attorney General of Louisiana, and John L. Madden, Special Assistant Attorney General; Edward F. Arn, Attorney General of Kansas; A. B. Mitchell; Elton M. Hyder, Jr., Assistant Attorney General of Texas; Grover Sellers and Orrin G. Judd.
By special leave of Court, Leander I. Shelley argued the cause for the American Association of Port Authorities, as
James E. Watson and Orin deM. Walker filed a brief for Robert E. Lee Jordan, as amicus curiae, in support of the United States.
Briefs of amici curiae in support of the defendant were filed by Nathaniel L. Goldstein, Attorney General, and Wendell P. Brown, Solicitor General, for the State of New York; T. McKeen Chidsey, Attorney General, M. Vashti Burr, Deputy Attorney General, and Harry F. Stambaugh for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; Herman C. Wilson, Horace H. Edward, Walter J. Mattison, Ray L. Chesebro and Charles S. Rhyne for the National Institute of Municipal Law Officers; Ray L. Chesebro, W. Reginald Jones, Irving M. Smith and Hugh H. MacDonald, for the California Association of Port Authorities; Archibald N. Jordan for the Lawrence Wards Island Realty Co.; and A. L. Weil and Thomas A. J. Dockweiler.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.
The United States by its Attorney General and Solicitor General brought this suit against the State of California invoking our original jurisdiction under
California has filed an answer to the complaint. It admits that persons holding leases from California, or those claiming under it, have been extracting petroleum products from the land under the three-mile ocean belt immediately adjacent to California. The basis of California‘s asserted ownership is that a belt extending three English miles from low water mark lies within the original boundaries of the state,
After California‘s answer was filed, the United States moved for judgment as prayed for in the complaint on the ground that the purported defenses were not sufficient in law. The legal issues thus raised have been exhaustively presented by counsel for the parties, both by brief and oral argument. Neither has suggested any necessity for the introduction of evidence, and we perceive no such necessity at this stage of the case. It is now ripe for determination of the basic legal issues presented by the motion. But before reaching the merits of these issues, we must first consider questions raised in California‘s brief and oral argument concerning the Government‘s right to an adjudication of its claim in this proceeding.
First. It is contended that the pleadings present no case or controversy under
Nor can we sustain that phase of the state‘s contention as to the absence of a case or controversy resting on the argument that it is impossible to identify the subject matter of the suit so as to render a proper decree. The land claimed by the Government, it is said, has not been sufficiently described in the complaint since the only shoreward boundary of some segments of the marginal belt is the line between that belt and the State‘s inland waters. And the Government includes in the term “in-
We may assume that location of the exact coastal line will involve many complexities and difficulties. But that does not make this any the less a justiciable controversy. Certainly demarcation of the boundary is not an impossibility. Despite difficulties this Court has previously adjudicated controversies concerning submerged land boundaries. See New Jersey v. Delaware, 291 U. S. 361, 295 U. S. 694; Borax, Ltd. v. Los Angeles, 296 U. S. 10, 21-27; Oklahoma v. Texas, 256 U. S. 70, 602. And there is no reason why, after determining in general who owns the three-mile belt here involved, the Court might not later, if necessary, have more detailed hearings in order to determine with greater definiteness particular segments of the boundary. Oklahoma v. Texas, 258 U. S. 574, 582. Such practice is commonplace in actions similar to this which are in the nature of equitable proceedings. See e. g. Oklahoma v. Texas, 256 U. S. 602, 608-609; 260 U. S. 606, 625, 261 U. S. 340. California‘s contention concerning the indefiniteness of the claim presents no insuperable obstacle to the exercise of the highly important jurisdiction conferred on us by Article III of the Constitution.
Second. It is contended that we should dismiss this action on the ground that the Attorney General has not been granted power either to file or to maintain it. It is
An Act passed by Congress and signed by the President could, of course, limit the power previously granted the Attorney General to prosecute claims for the Government. For
But no Act of Congress has amended the statutes which impose on the Attorney General the authority and the duty to protect the Government‘s interests through the
Neither the matters to which we have specifically referred, nor any others relied on by California, afford support for a holding that Congress has either explicitly or by implication stripped the Attorney General of his statu-
Third. The crucial question on the merits is not merely who owns the bare legal title to the lands under the marginal sea. The United States here asserts rights in two capacities transcending those of a mere property owner. In one capacity it asserts the right and responsibility to exercise whatever power and dominion are necessary to protect this country against dangers to the security and tranquility of its people incident to the fact that the United States is located immediately adjacent to the ocean. The Government also appears in its capacity as a member of the family of nations. In that capacity it is responsible for conducting United States relations with other nations. It asserts that proper exercise of these constitutional responsibilities requires that it have power, unencumbered by state commitments, always to determine what agreements will be made concerning the control and use of the marginal sea and the land under it. See McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 403-408; United States v. Minnesota, 270 U. S. 181, 194. In the light of the foregoing, our question is whether the state or the Federal Government has the paramount right and power to determine in the first instance when, how, and by what agencies, foreign or domestic, the oil and other resources of the soil of the marginal sea, known or hereafter discovered, may be exploited.
California claims that it owns the resources of the soil under the three-mile marginal belt as an incident to those elements of sovereignty which it exercises in that water area. The state points out that its original Constitution, adopted in 1849 before that state was admitted to the Union, included within the state‘s boundary the water area extending three English miles from the shore,
The Government does not deny that under the Pollard rule, as explained in later cases,8 California has a qualified ownership9 of lands under inland navigable waters such as rivers, harbors, and even tidelands down to the low water mark. It does question the validity of the rationale in the Pollard case that ownership of such water areas, any
It would unduly prolong our opinion to discuss in detail the multitude of references to which the able briefs of the parties have cited us with reference to the evolution of powers over marginal seas exercised by adjacent countries. From all the wealth of material supplied, however, we cannot say that the thirteen original colonies separately acquired ownership to the three-mile belt or the soil under it,10 even if they did acquire elements of the sovereignty of the English Crown by their revolution against it. Cf. United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U. S. 304, 316.
It did happen that shortly after we became a nation our statesmen became interested in establishing national dominion over a definite marginal zone to protect our neutrality.16 Largely as a result of their efforts, the idea of a definite three-mile belt in which an adjacent nation can, if it chooses, exercise broad, if not complete dominion, has apparently at last been generally accepted throughout the world, although as late as 1876 there was still considerable doubt in England about its scope and even its existence. See The Queen v. Keyn, 2 Ex. D. 63. That the political agencies of this nation both claim and exercise broad dominion and control over our three-mile marginal belt is now a settled fact. Cunard Steamship Co. v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 100, 122-124.18
Not only has acquisition, as it were, of the three-mile belt been accomplished by the National Government, but protection and control of it has been and is a function of national external sovereignty. See Jones v. United States, 137 U. S. 202; In re Cooper, 143 U. S. 472, 502. The belief that local interests are so predominant as constitutionally to require state dominion over lands under its land-locked navigable waters finds some argument for its support. But such can hardly be said in favor of state control over any part of the ocean or the ocean‘s bottom. This country, throughout its existence has stood for freedom of the seas, a principle whose breach has precipitated wars among nations. The country‘s adoption of the three-mile belt is by no means incompatible with its traditional insistence upon freedom of the sea, at least so long as the national Government‘s power to exercise control consistently with whatever international undertakings or commitments it may see fit to assume in the national interest that generally the three-mile limit constitutes “the proper limits of territorial waters.” See e. g., 43 Stat. 1761 (Pt. 2).
There are innumerable executive declarations to the world of our national claims to the three-mile belt, and more recently to the whole continental shelf. For references to diplomatic correspondence making these assertions, see 1 Moore, International Law Digest (1906) 705, 706, 707; 1 Wharton, Digest of International Law (1886) 100. See also Hughes, Recent Questions and Negotiations, 18 A. J. I. L. 229 (1924).
The latest and broadest claim is President Truman‘s recent proclamation that the United States “regards the natural resources of the subsoil and sea bed of the continental shelf beneath the high seas but contiguous to the coasts of the United States as appertaining to the United States, subject to its jurisdiction and control . . . .” Exec. Proc. 2667, Sept. 28, 1945, 10 F. R. 12303.
The ocean, even its three-mile belt, is thus of vital consequence to the nation in its desire to engage in commerce and to live in peace with the world; it also becomes of crucial importance should it ever again become impossible to preserve that peace. And as peace and world commerce are the paramount responsibilities of the nation, rather than an individual state, so, if wars come, they must be fought by the nation. See Chy Lung v. Freeman, 92 U. S. 275, 279. The state is not equipped in our constitutional system with the powers or the facilities for exercising the responsibilities which would be concomitant with
As previously stated, this Court has followed and reasserted the basic doctrine of the Pollard case many times. And in doing so it has used language strong enough to indicate that the Court then believed that states not only owned tidelands and soil under navigable inland waters, but also owned soils under all navigable waters within their territorial jurisdiction, whether inland or not. All of these statements were, however, merely paraphrases or offshoots of the Pollard inland-water rule, and were used, not as enunciation of a new ocean rule, but in explanation of the old inland-water principle. Notwithstanding the fact that none of these cases either involved or decided the state-federal conflict presented here, we are urged to say that the language used and repeated in those cases fore-
There are three such cases whose language probably lends more weight to California‘s argument than any others. The first is Manchester v. Massachusetts, 139 U. S. 240. That case involved only the power of Massachusetts to regulate fishing. Moreover, the illegal fishing charged was in Buzzards Bay, found to be within Massachusetts territory, and no question whatever was raised or decided as to title or paramount rights in the open sea. And the Court specifically laid to one side any question as to the rights of the Federal Government to regulate fishing there. The second case, Louisiana v. Mississippi, 202 U. S. 1, 52, uses language about “the sway of the riparian States” over “maritime belts.” That was a case involving the boundary between Louisiana and Mississippi. It did not involve any dispute between the federal and state governments. And the Court there specifically laid aside questions concerning “the breadth of the maritime belt or the extent of the sway of the riparian States . . . .” Id. at 52. The third case is The Abby Dodge, 223 U. S. 166. That was an action against a ship landing sponges at a Florida port in violation of an Act of Congress, 34 Stat. 313, which made it unlawful to “land” sponges taken under certain conditions from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. This Court construed the statute‘s prohibition as applying only to sponges outside the state‘s “territorial limits” in the Gulf. It thus narrowed the scope of the statute because of a belief that the United States was without power to regulate the Florida traffic in sponges obtained from within Florida‘s territorial limits, presumably the three-mile belt. But the opinion in that case was concerned with the state‘s power to regulate and conserve within its territorial waters, not with its exercise of the right to use and deplete
None of the foregoing cases, nor others which we have decided, are sufficient to require us to extend the Pollard inland-water rule so as to declare that California owns or has paramount rights in or power over the three-mile belt under the ocean. The question of who owned the bed of the sea only became of great potential importance at the beginning of this century when oil was discovered there.21 As a consequence of this discovery, California passed an Act in 1921 authorizing the granting of permits to California residents to prospect for oil and gas on blocks of land off its coast under the ocean. Cal. Stats. 1921, c. 303. This state statute, and others which followed it, together with the leasing practices under them, have precipitated this extremely important controversy, and pointedly raised this state-federal conflict for the first time. Now that the question is here, we decide for the reasons we have stated that California is not the owner of the three-mile marginal belt along its coast, and that the Federal Government rather than the state has paramount rights in and power over that belt, an incident to
Fourth. Nor can we agree with California that the Federal Government‘s paramount rights have been lost by reason of the conduct of its agents. The state sets up such a defense, arguing that by this conduct the Government is barred from enforcing its rights by reason of principles similar to laches, estoppel or adverse possession. It would serve no useful purpose to recite the incidents in detail upon which the state relies for these defenses. Some of them are undoubtedly consistent with a belief on the part of some Government agents at the time that California owned all, or at least a part of the three-mile belt. This belief was indicated in the substantial number of instances in which the Government acquired title from the states to lands located in the belt; some decisions of the Department of Interior have denied applications for federal oil and gas leases in the California coastal belt on the ground that California owned the lands. Outside of court decisions following the Pollard rule, the foregoing are the types of conduct most nearly indicative of waiver upon which the state relies to show that the Government has lost its paramount rights in the belt. Assuming that Government agents could by conduct, short of a congressional surrender of title or interest, preclude the Government from asserting its legal rights, we cannot say it has done so here. As a matter of fact, the record plainly demonstrates that until the California oil issue began to be pressed in the thirties, neither the states nor the Government had reason to focus attention on the question of which of them owned or had paramount rights in or power over the three-mile belt. And even assuming that Government agencies have been negligent in failing to recognize or assert the claims of the Government at an earlier date, the great interests of the Government in this ocean
We have not overlooked California‘s argument, buttressed by earnest briefs on behalf of other states, that improvements have been made along and near the shores at great expense to public and private agencies. And we note the Government‘s suggestion that the aggregate value of all these improvements are small in comparison with the tremendous value of the entire three-mile belt here in controversy. But however this may be, we are faced with the issue as to whether state or nation has paramount rights in and power over this ocean belt, and that great national question is not dependent upon what expenses may have been incurred upon mistaken assumptions. Furthermore, we cannot know how many of these improvements are within and how many without the boundary of the marginal sea which can later be accurately defined. But beyond all this we cannot and do not assume that Congress, which has constitutional control over Government property, will execute its powers in such way as to bring about injustices to states, their subdivisions, or persons acting pursuant to their permission. See United States v. Texas, 162 U. S. 1, 89, 90; Lee Wilson & Co. v. United States, 245 U. S. 24, 32.
It is so ordered.
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
MR. JUSTICE REED, dissenting.
In my view the controversy brought before this Court by the complaint of the United States against California seeks a judgment between State and Nation as to the ownership of the land underlying the Pacific Ocean, seaward of the ordinary low water mark, on the coast of California and within the three-mile limit. The ownership of that land carries with it, it seems to me, the ownership of any minerals or other valuables in the soil, as well as the right to extract them.
The determination as to the ownership of the land in controversy turns for me on the fact as to ownership in the original thirteen states of similar lands prior to the formation of the Union. If the original states owned the bed of the sea, adjacent to their coasts, to the three-mile limit, then I think California has the same title or ownership to the lands adjacent to her coast. The original states were sovereignties in their own right, possessed of so much of the land underneath the adjacent seas as was generally recognized to be under their jurisdiction. The scope of their jurisdiction and the boundaries of their lands were coterminous. Any part of that territory which had not passed from their ownership by existing valid grants were and remained public lands of the respective states. California, as is customary, was admitted into
The authorities cited in the Court‘s opinion lead me to the conclusion that the original states owned the lands under the seas to the three-mile limit. There were, of course, as is shown by the citations, variations in the claims of sovereignty, jurisdiction or ownership among the nations of the world. As early as 1793, Jefferson as Secretary of State, in a communication to the British Minister, said that the territorial protection of the United States would be extended “three geographical miles” and added:
“This distance can admit of no opposition, as it is recognized by treaties between some of the powers with whom we are connected in commerce and navigation, and is as little, or less, than is claimed by any of them on their own coasts.” H. Ex. Doc. No. 324, 42d Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 553-54.
If the original states did claim, as I think they did, sovereignty and ownership to the three-mile limit, California has the same rights in the lands bordering its littoral.
This ownership in California would not interfere in any way with the needs or rights of the United States in war or peace. The power of the United States is plenary over these undersea lands precisely as it is over every
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, dissenting.
By this original bill the United States prayed for a decree enjoining all persons, including those asserting a claim derived from the State of California, from trespassing upon the disputed area. An injunction against trespassers normally presupposes property rights. The Court, however, grants the prayer but does not do so by finding that the United States has proprietary interests in the area. To be sure, it denies such proprietary rights in California. But even if we assume an absence of ownership or possessory interest on the part of California, that does not establish a proprietary interest in the United States. It is significant that the Court does not adopt the Government‘s elaborate argument, based on dubious and tenuous writings of publicists, see Schwarzenberger, Inductive Approach to International Law, 60 Harv. L. Rev. 539, 559, that this part of the open sea belongs, in a proprietary sense, to the United States. See American Banana Co. v. United Fruit Co., 213 U. S. 347, 351. Instead, the Court finds trespass against the United States on the basis of what it calls the “national dominion” by the United States over this area.
To speak of “dominion” carries precisely those overtones in the law which relate to property and not to political authority. Dominion, from the Roman concept dominium, was concerned with property and ownership,
The fact that these oil deposits in the open sea may be vital to the national security, and important elements in the conduct of our foreign affairs, is no more relevant than is the existence of uranium deposits, wherever they may be, in determining questions of trespass to the land of which they form a part. This is not a situation where an exercise of national power is actively and presently interfered with. In such a case, the inherent power of a federal court of equity may be invoked to prevent or remove the obstruction. In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564; Sanitary District v. United States, 266 U. S. 405. Neither the bill, nor the opinion sustaining it, suggests that there is interference by California or the alleged trespassers with any authority which the Government presently seeks to exercise. It is beside the point to say that “if wars come, they must be fought by the nation.” Nor is it relevant that “The very oil about which the state and nation here
To declare that the Government has “national dominion” is merely a way of saying that vis-à-vis all other nations the Government is the sovereign. If that is what the Court‘s decree means, it needs no pronouncement by this Court to confer or declare such sovereignty. If it means more than that, it implies that the Government has some proprietary interest. That has not been remotely established except by sliding from absence of ownership by California to ownership by the United States.
Let us assume, for the present, that ownership by California cannot be proven. On a fair analysis of all the evidence bearing on ownership, then, this area is, I believe, to be deemed unclaimed land, and the determination to claim it on the part of the United States is a political decision not for this Court. The Constitution places vast authority for the conduct of foreign relations in the independent hands of the President. See United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 299 U. S. 304. It is noteworthy that the Court does not treat the President‘s proclamation in regard to the disputed area as an assertion of ownership. See Exec. Proc. 2667 (Sept. 28, 1945) 10 F. R. 12303. If California is found to have no title, and this area is regarded as unclaimed land, I have no doubt that the President and the Congress between them could make it part of the national domain and thereby bring it under Article IV, Section 3, of the Constitution. The disposition of the area, the rights to be created in it, the rights heretofore claimed in it through usage that might be respected though it fall short of prescription, all raise appropriate questions of policy, questions of ac-
Today this Court has decided that a new application even in the old field of torts should not be made by adjudication, where Congress has refrained from acting. United States v. Standard Oil Co., 332 U. S. 301. Considerations of judicial self-restraint would seem to me far more compelling where there are obviously at stake claims that involve so many far-reaching, complicated, historic interests, the proper adjustments of which are not readily resolved by the materials and methods to which this Court is confined.
This is a summary statement of views which it would serve no purpose to elaborate. I think that the bill should be dismissed without prejudice.