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Date: 03-05-2009

Case Style: State of New Mexico v. UU Bar Ranch Limited Partnership

Case Number: 2009-NMSC-010

Judge: Bosson

Court: Supreme Court of New Mexico, Santa Fe County

Plaintiff's Attorney: Gary K. King, Attorney General, David K. Thomson, Assistant Attorney General, Nanette E. Erdman, Assistant Attorney General, Santa Fe, NM

Defendant's Attorney: Henry M. Bohnoff, Edward Ricco and Jocelyn Drennan, Rodey, Dickason, Sloan, Akin & Robb, P.A., Albuquerque, New Mexico

Description: {1} The State Attorney General filed this quiet-title action to secure title to a roadway that historically had provided public access to thousands of acres of state trust lands in Colfax and Mora counties. The Attorney General has prevailed in its quest to quiet title, with two Court of Appeals opinions agreeing that the state holds title to the road in question. This appeal arises because the second Court of Appeals opinion, while not disturbing the first Court of Appeals’ conclusion as to title, conclusively decided that the road did not provide access to state trust lands—an issue which had never been fully litigated, much less decided by any of the prior courts. In so holding, the second Court of Appeals opinion established the location of the border between state and private lands in a different place from its commonly, and historically, accepted site—doing so, importantly, even though the titleholder of those state lands was never joined in any prior proceedings.

{2} Relying in part on our law-of-the-case doctrine, we reverse the second Court of Appeals opinion, and decide that the state has title to a road that provides public access to state trust lands unless, and until, there is a proper adjudication of that boundary line with all necessary parties joined. We affirm the part of the second Court of Appeals opinion that declares the width of said road.

BACKGROUND

{3} Late in the summer of 1997, a private company which owned thousands of acres of ranch land and wilderness in northern New Mexico built a locked gate across what for at least 150 years had been a public thoroughfare, and what for many decades had been a principal means of public access to 41,000 acres of nearby state trust land. Angered by the company’s blockade of this public resource, local residents complained to public officials. The Attorney General investigated and discovered that state officials had told the company, UU Bar Ranch (“the Ranch”), that the state had abandoned its interest in the road. Relying on this advice, the Ranch had blocked public passage across the road.

{4} Seeking to guarantee public access to adjacent state trust lands, the Attorney General filed suit in 1998, requesting injunctive relief. It asked the district court of Colfax County for an order requiring the Ranch to remove the gate and allow access. The district court dismissed the suit, but suggested that the Attorney General re-file the action as a quiet-title action. The Attorney General did so.

{5} This decision, to proceed in the form of a quiet-title action, transformed the case from what may have been a relatively straightforward effort to re-establish the public’s right to use a New Mexico state highway into a more complicated proceeding. The new quiet-title action had as its ultimate goal the provision of public access to state trust lands—the same goal as the original injunctive action. But that goal had to be achieved in a more roundabout way by establishing that the state held title to the road.

{6} The State has successfully proven title. The Court of Appeals, in two separate opinions, has agreed that the state and not the Ranch holds title. However, the amorphous nature of a quiet-title action permitted litigation on questions which strayed far from the lawsuit’s original purpose. The litigation drifted into areas that had little to do with the purpose, foundation, and central issue of this lawsuit, which has always been a simple question: May the public use the public road in question to get to publicly owned lands?

{7} For reasons that follow, we answer this question in the affirmative. In doing so, we acknowledge that the location of the boundary between the Ranch and state trust lands could, in later litigation before a different court, affect the more basic question of whether the road enters public lands. But this litigation has not yet happened, and the case before us was never, and still is not, a boundary dispute.

{8} The district court entered numerous findings of fact and conclusions of law, largely uncontested, which form the backdrop to this litigation. The section of road in dispute (“the Road”) is a 2.6-mile stretch of dirt road in Colfax County which was once part of El Camino Real and the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail. The Road has been the property of New Mexico since statehood, and prior to that was the property of the Territory of New Mexico. The Road passes through private property owned at the time of this litigation by the Ranch. The Ranch property abuts vast public lands, formerly part of the Maxwell Land Grant, that are held in public trust by the state. Historically, the public has used those state trust lands for hunting and recreational activities. Of special importance to this opinion, the public has long gained access to those public lands from the north and east by traveling along the Road, and did so continuously over many years until the events leading to this litigation.

Procedural History

{9} The procedural history of this appeal is unusually complex. That complexity has become an important part of the case in its own right and has had a significant impact both on the arguments of the parties and on the result we reach in this opinion. Accordingly, we consider it helpful to devote more attention than usual to the incremental actions of the courts that have preceded this appeal.

{10} The first district court to hear this case entered a decision (District Court I) in 2002 which included findings of fact and conclusions of law, many of which we have already summarized above. Of particular import to this case is the court’s finding that the Road is “wholly within” Ranch property. The Ranch hangs much of its argument on this phrase, asserting that it shows a clear factual finding by District Court I that the Road does not reach state trust lands. We address this argument in detail below. Notwithstanding the State’s historical claim to title, District Court I found that the State had abandoned its title to the Road by virtue of official actions taken in 1985. Continuing to press for public access to the state lands adjacent to the Road, the State appealed the court’s finding that it had abandoned the Road.

{11} In a published opinion, the first Court of Appeals (Court of Appeals I) reversed, holding that the State had not abandoned title to the Road. State ex rel. Madrid v. UU Bar Ranch Ltd. P’ship, 2005-NMCA-079, ¶ 2, 137 N.M. 719, 114 P.3d 399. In doing so, the Court of Appeals emphasized the Road’s significance to the public, twice reiterating that the Road provided access to state trust lands. The Court noted that “the Road is critical to access to state trust lands,” id. ¶ 17, and described the court’s task as determining “who is the rightful titleholder to a road that provides access to the White Peak area of state trust lands,” id. ¶ 2. Court of Appeals I perpetuated the “wholly within” language used by District Court I, changing it slightly to “completely within.” Id. ¶ 3.

{12} Court of Appeals I remanded to the district court for further proceedings consistent with its opinion. Id. ¶ 34. This Court denied the Ranch’s petition for certiorari, 2005-NMCERT-6, and the issue of abandonment is not before us. What is before us is how the State, having prevailed on the only issue decided by the appellate court, did not thereafter secure the one thing it had sought from the very beginning—public access along the Road to the state lands beyond.

{13} The answer can be found in the district court’s order on remand (District Court II), as well as the second Court of Appeals opinion (Court of Appeals II). Those two courts, in concert, culminated in a result which might be described as producing a road to nowhere: the courts collectively held that the State has title to the Road, but that Road does not do the one thing for which the State wanted it—provide access to state trust lands.

{14} Arguing that District Court II violated the spirit of the Court of Appeals I opinion by failing to grant title to a road providing access, the State appealed. It asked the Court of Appeals to adopt a definition of the Road which, the State asserted, affirmatively provided access to state trust lands.

{15} Court of Appeals II declined to do so, but rather affirmed the District Court II in an unpublished memorandum opinion. State ex rel. King v. UU Bar Ltd. P’ship, No. 26,194, slip op. at 5 (N.M. Ct. App. Oct. 5, 2007). It was in this opinion that the Court struck out into virgin territory, expressly concluding for the first time in this litigation that the Road did not provide access to state trust lands. Id. at 6. Based on its own reading of the evidentiary record, Court of Appeals II concluded that the Road actually provided no access to anyone to the adjacent state lands except presumably those traveling with the permission of the Ranch. See id.

{16} The Court of Appeals II opinion, relying on its understanding of District Court II, held that the Road actually terminated short of the state trust land boundary and “inside [the Ranch’s] property.” Id. at 3. Rejecting the State’s view of what had transpired up to that time, the court summarized its position: “Although Plaintiffs won this battle by establishing title to a 2.6 mile stretch of road of the former Santa Fe Trail, they have yet to win the war, since the 2.6 mile stretch of road to which Plaintiffs have successfully quieted title terminates inside Defendant’s property.” Id. at 5.

{17} Faced with the prospect of having snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, the State petitioned this Court for review. We paraphrase the State’s position as follows. After years of litigation, the State has finally won title to a Road which, until the Ranch placed its gate in 1997, had always provided access to adjacent state trust lands, but which now, according to the Court of Appeals, terminates inside the Ranch boundaries and, in effect, leads nowhere.

{18} We granted the State’s petition to resolve the important question of access to public lands as well as the uncertain implications of the lower court rulings with regard to the location of the boundary line between the Ranch and state trust lands. We are also concerned about the troubling implications of having expended more than a decade of our judiciary’s time and resources without, we are told, even approaching resolution of this conflict.

* * *

http://www.supremecourt.nm.org/opinions/VIEW/09sc-010.html

Outcome: {19} The State argues that the Court of Appeals II holding departs inexplicably and unjustifiably from what had already become the established law of this case. That law of the case is contained in the prior judicial rulings referred to above, and most particularly in Court of Appeals I, which appeared to assume that the Road provided public access to the state trust lands in question. In response, the Ranch argues that the law-of-the-case doctrine does not apply, and that we should affirm Court of Appeals II, because it is supported by substantial evidence in the record. To decide this question, we turn first to an analysis of the relevant evidence in light of our law-of-the-case doctrine, and then to the Court of Appeals II opinion which is at the heart of the State’s appeal.

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