Southwest Four Wheel Drive Ass'n v. Bureau of Land Management

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit

PUBLISH APR 7 2004

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALSPATRICK FISHER
Clerk
TENTH CIRCUIT

SOUTHWEST FOUR WHEEL DRIVE
ASSOCIATION, a New Mexico
nonprofit association; LAS CRUCES
FOUR WHEEL DRIVE CLUB, a New
Mexico unincorporated association,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT,
an agency of the United States
Department of the Interior; AMY No. 03-2138
LEUDERS, District Manager, Las
Cruces District, Bureau of Land
Management; UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA,

Defendants-Appellees.

THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY; NEW
MEXICO WILDERNESS
ASSOCIATION,

Intervenors-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of New Mexico
(D.C. No. CIV-00-799-LH/ACT)
Lee E. Peters, of Hubert & Hernandez, P.A., Las Cruces, New Mexico, for
Southwest Four Wheel Drive Association, and Las Cruces Four Wheel Drive
Club, Plaintiffs-Appellants.

M. Alice Thurston, Attorney, Appellate Section, Environment & Natural
Resources Division, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. (Todd S. Aagaard,
Attorney, Appellate Section, Environment & Natural Resources Division,
Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., Thomas L. Sansonetti, Assistant
Attorney General, David C. Iglesias, United States Attorney, and Raymond
Hamilton, Assistant United States Attorney, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Dale
Pontius, Office of the Solicitor, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Paul B. Smyth and Wendy
S. Dorman, Office of the Solicitor, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.,
on the briefs with her) for Bureau of Land Management, Amy Leuders, and
United States of America, Defendants-Appellees.

Edward B. Zukoski, of Earthjustice, Denver, Colorado, for The Wilderness
Society and New Mexico Wilderness Association, Intervenors/Appelles.

Before SEYMOUR, Circuit Judge, BALDOCK, Senior Circuit Judge and
LUCERO, Circuit Judge.

SEYMOUR, Circuit Judge.

Southwest Four Wheel Drive Association (Southwest) filed suit in federal

district court in New Mexico seeking a judgment granting to the public the title to

certain roads on federal land. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) closed the

roads at issue after designating the area encompassing them the Robledo

Mountains Wilderness Study Area and declaring the area “roadless.” The district

court dismissed Southwest’s claim, noting the Quiet Title Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2409a,

provided Southwest’s exclusive remedy and finding Southwest’s claim outside the

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Act’s twelve-year statute of limitations. Southwest Four Wheel Drive Ass’n. v.

Bureau of Land Mgmt., 271 F.Supp.2d 1308, 1314 (D. N.M. 2003). “We are free

to affirm a district court decision on any grounds for which there is a record

sufficient to permit conclusions of law, even grounds not relied upon by the

district court.” United States v. Sandoval, 29 F.3d 537, 542 n.6 (10th Cir. 1994)

(citations and quotations omitted). Holding Southwest lacks a cause of action

under the Quiet Title Act, we affirm the district court’s dismissal.

Congress waived the United States’ sovereign immunity to suits seeking to

quiet title to certain federal lands in the Quiet Title Act. One of the Act’s

requirements is that any claimant under the Act must “set forth with particularity

the nature of the right, title, or interest which the plaintiff claims in the real

property.” 28 U.S.C. § 2409a(d). We held in Kinscherff v. United States, 586

F.2d 159, 160 (10th Cir. 1978), that “[m]embers of the public . . . do not have a

‘title’ in public roads,” and therefore cannot meet the requirements of section

2409a(d). Because Southwest’s claim is indistinguishable from the one denied in

Kinscherff, that case disposes of Southwest’s appeal.

The district court held that the Supreme Court’s decision in Block v. North

Dakota, 461 U.S. 273 (1983), overruled Kinscherff on the point of law at issue in

this case. We disagree. Block definitively established the Quiet Title Act as “the

exclusive means by which adverse claimants [can] challenge the United States’

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title to real property,” Block, 461 U.S. at 286, but that holding does not create a

claim for Southwest. The Block decision merely means that if Southwest cannot

state a claim under the Quiet Title Act, it has no other recourse against the United

States.

“When the United States consents to be sued, the terms of its waiver of

sovereign immunity define the extent of the court’s jurisdiction.” United States v.

Mottaz, 476 U.S. 834, 841 (1986). Because the Quiet Title Act is the exclusive

means for challenging the United States’ title to real property, Block, 461 U.S. at

286, if Southwest cannot state a claim within the terms of the Act’s provisions,

the federal courts lack jurisdiction over its suit. See, e.g., Warren v. United

States, 234 F.3d 1331, 1332 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (discussing the terms of the Quiet

Title Act as prerequisites to jurisdiction); Staley v. United States, 168 F. Supp. 2d

1209, 1211-12 (D. Colo. 2001) (same); Baker’s Peak Landowner’s Ass’n, Inc. v.

United States, 2001 WL 34360431, at *2 (D. Colo. 2001) (same). Pursuant to

Kinscherff, Southwest cannot establish a claim under the Quiet Title Act and thus

it cannot bring suit against the United States.

Given Southwest’s inability to state a claim, we need not reach the statute

of limitations question upon which the district court based its dismissal. Albeit

on different grounds than those asserted by the district court, we AFFIRM.

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