United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 04-1275
PETER TORRÉNS, ET AL.,
Plaintiffs, Appellees,
v.
LOCKHEED MARTIN SERVICES GROUP, INC.,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Raymond L. Acosta, Senior U.S. District Judge]
Before
Boudin, Chief Judge,
Howard, Circuit Judge,
and Carter,* Senior District Judge.
Anabel Rodríguez-Alonso with whom Pedro Giner-Dapena and
Schuster Usera & Aguiló LLP were on brief for appellant.
Mark B. Stern, Appellate Staff, Civil Division, Department of
Justice, with whom Peter D. Keisler, Assistant Attorney General, H.
S. García, United States Attorney, and Johathan H. Levy, Appellate
Staff, Civil Division, Department of Justice, were on brief for the
United States of America, Amicus Curiae.
Mauricio Hernández-Arroyo with whom Law Offices of Mauricio
Hernández-Arroyo, López-Lay Vizcarra & Simonet were on brief for
appellees.
February 7, 2005
*
Of the District of Maine, sitting by designation.
BOUDIN, Chief Judge. The narrow but important question
before us is whether certain property at U.S. Naval Station
Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico is "federal enclave" property over
which the federal government enjoys exclusive legislative
jurisdiction (save as federal law may incorporate local law). The
question, on which district court judges in Puerto Rico have now
reached conflicting results, is buried in a private law suit, now
a decade old.
Roosevelt Roads was a Navy base (recently deactivated but
still federally owned), primarily located at the eastern tip of
Puerto Rico. At its height, it was one of the largest naval
facilities in the world. The lands it occupied were acquired
piecemeal, at different times, starting around 1940--through
condemnation actions, reclamation, transfers of U.S. Army property,
and the like.
Piers at the base jut into Puerca Bay and Ensenada Honda
Bay, extending from land mostly created from fill. On the filled
land touching Puerca Bay, there is also a dry dock that extends
inland, partly on filled land and partly on original upland. These
piers and the surrounding landfill--collectively, the "piers area"-
-are central to this case. The large tract (just under 1,300
acres) from which the piers area extends was apparently acquired by
the United States on November 18, 1941; and construction of the
piers area--channel-dredging, landfilling, and building of the dry
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dock--were all underway between 1941 and 1943. Nieves v. Standard
Dredging Corp., 152 F.2d 719, 719-20 (1st Cir. 1945).
In 1995, former employees of a government contractor--
Lockheed Martin Services Group ("Lockheed") is the successor in
interest--brought suit against the company in a local Puerto Rico
court. The contractor provided maintenance and other services for
the Navy at Roosevelt Roads. The suit sought overtime pay and
other work-related relief under Puerto Rico wage and benefit laws
for past work performed in the piers area and perhaps aboard ships
docked at the piers.
After delay and appeals within the Puerto Rico court
system caused by disputes over service of process, the case was
proceeding forward in 1999, when the plaintiff employees added
claims under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. §§
201-219 (2000). Based on the federal claims, Lockheed removed the
case to federal court, 28 U.S.C. § 1441 (2000). It then sought
dismissal of the original claims grounded on Puerto Rico law,
asserting that federal law alone applied to work done within the
Roosevelt Roads facility.
This contention rested on doctrine derived from a
provision in the U.S. Constitution (article I, section 8, clause
17), sometimes described as the "enclave clause," which grants
Congress power
[t]o exercise exclusive Legislation in all
Cases whatsoever . . . over all Places
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purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of
the State in which the Same shall be for the
Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-
Yards, and other needful Buildings.
Under the enclave clause, a web of statutory provisions, practice
and case law has developed to determine whether and when property
acquired by the federal government meets the conditions for
treatment as a federal enclave to which state regulation does not
apply.1
This same regime of federal enclave law has regularly
been assumed to apply in Puerto Rico even though it is a
Commonwealth rather than a state (and therefore Congress might have
designed a different regime for governing federal property there).
The assumption is undisputed by the parties and (as will appear) is
reflected in Puerto Rico legislation, in the past conduct of
federal government officials and their analyses bearing on
Roosevelt Roads, in prior case law that has dealt with Roosevelt
Roads, and in the district court's decision in this case.
Under this body of federal enclave doctrine, a state does
not lose its police powers over land acquired by the federal
government--legislative jurisdiction may remain with the state,
1
See, e.g., Paul v. United States, 371 U.S. 245, 263-67
(1963); James v. Dravo Contracting Co., 302 U.S. 134, 142, 147-49
(1937); Fort Leavenworth R.R. Co. v. Lowe, 114 U.S. 525, 528
(1885). See generally U.S. Interdepartmental Comm. for the Study
of Jurisdiction over Federal Areas Within the States, Jurisdiction
over Federal Areas Within the States, pt. 1 (G.P.O. 1956) & pt. 2
(G.P.O. 1957) [hereinafter Jurisdiction over Federal Areas].
-4-
subject always to overriding federal legislation--unless (1) the
state consented to the land's acquisition or later ceded certain
powers, (2) the federal government has assumed the ceded authority,
and (3) the land's federal use is consistent with the enclave
clause. Paul, 371 U.S. at 263-67.
A 1903 Puerto Rico law granted blanket consent to any
future acquisition by the United States of lands within Puerto Rico
for "naval, military or other public purposes," providing also that
on such acquisition "all jurisdiction over such lands" by Puerto
Rico "shall cease and determine [sic]" so long as the United States
retains the property. Act of February 16, 1903, § 5, 1903 P.R.
Laws, 110, 111-12. This consent and cession provision, although
superceded in 1955, see 28 P.R. Laws Ann. §§ 54-55 (1985), was
still in force when much of Roosevelt Roads was acquired in the
1940s.
Prior to 1940, the prevailing understanding of the
enclave clause was that the states' blanket cession statutes
operated to "transfer" exclusive legislative jurisdiction to the
United States once the federal government acquired the land.2 But
in 1940, Congress passed a law specifying how the United States
should assume exclusive jurisdiction if it wanted such authority
2
See Fort Leavenworth, 114 U.S. at 528; Jurisdiction over
Federal Areas, supra, pt. 2, at 47-54; Peter S. Twitty, U.S. Navy
Dep't, The Respective Powers of the Federal and Local Governments
Within Lands Owned or Occupied by the United States 12-13 (G.P.O.
1944).
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and expressly instructing that "[u]nless and until the United
States has accepted jurisdiction over lands hereafter to be
acquired as aforesaid, it shall be conclusively presumed that no
such jurisdiction has been accepted." 40 U.S.C. § 255 (2000).
Pertinently, the statute said that
the head or other authorized officer of any
department or independent establishment or
agency of the Government may, in such cases
and at such times as he may deem desirable,
accept or secure from the State in which any
lands or interests therein under his immediate
jurisdiction, custody, or control are
situated, consent to or cession of such
jurisdiction, exclusive or partial, not
theretofore obtained, over any such lands or
interests as he may deem desirable and
indicate acceptance of such jurisdiction on
behalf of the United States by filing a notice
of such acceptance with the Governor of such
State or in such other manner as may be
prescribed by the laws of the State where such
lands are situated.
40 U.S.C. § 255 (emphasis supplied).
Prior to the present case, decisions in this circuit, and
a decision of the Puerto Rico Supreme Court, had uniformly held or
assumed that "federal enclave" status applies to Roosevelt Roads as
a whole.3 However, in the district court the plaintiffs responded
3
Dávila-Perez v. Lockheed-Martin Corp., 202 F.3d 464, 468 (1st
Cir. 2000); Rivera de Leon v. Maxon Eng'g Servs., 283 F. Supp. 2d
550, 558 (D.P.R. 2003); Kelly v. Martin Marietta Servs. Group, 25
F. Supp. 2d 1, 3-4 (D.P.R. 1998); Koren v. Martin Marietta Servs.,
Inc., 997 F. Supp. 196, 200-02 (D.P.R. 1998); Sopeña v. Colejon
Corp., 920 F. Supp. 259, 264 (D.P.R. 1996); Capitol Constr. v.
Sec'y of Treasury, 89 P.R.R. 319, 323 (1963); cf. People of P.R. v.
Koedel, 927 F.2d 662, 664-65 (1st Cir. 1991) (status of army base
at Fort Buchanan).
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to Lockheed's motion to dismiss local law claims by arguing, based
in part upon a newly discovered Navy memorandum, that no such
exclusive jurisdiction had been acquired by the United States over
the piers area because--as to this area--the assumption
requirements of the 1940 statute had never been met. If that were
so, local Puerto Rico law could of its own force apply to wage
benefit issues in dispute in this case.
In a decision filed on April 8, 2003, the district court
decided that the piers area is not part of a federal enclave,
relying importantly on a 1976 internal Navy memorandum ("the Brooks
memorandum") describing the piers, dry dock, and landfill at
Roosevelt Roads as a location "in which [exclusive] federal
jurisdiction is lacking."4 Given the conflict with earlier
decisions and its importance, the district court certified
Lockheed's petition for interlocutory appeal, see 28 U.S.C. §
1292(b) (2000), which we granted, inviting the views of the United
States as amicus curiae.
In its amicus brief in this court, the United States
asserts that it did acquire exclusive jurisdiction over the
Roosevelt Roads piers area. Further, it has produced a 1942
document, hitherto uncited in the district court or in prior cases,
4
The memorandum, dated November 30, 1976, was written by a
Navy official named Joseph Brooks on behalf of the "Command Judge
Advocate" to the "Head [of the] Naval Legal Service Branch Office."
Its purpose was to describe the legal status of Navy property at
Roosevelt Roads and other military commands in Puerto Rico.
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which the United States says represents its specific formal
acceptance of authority over the very area in Roosevelt Roads that
is at issue in this case. We conclude that this new document
requires a remand, but we resolve now as much as we properly can on
this appeal.
It is common ground that, following the 1940 statute
requiring a formal acceptance by the United States, the Secretary
of War on July 27, 1945, wrote a letter accepting exclusive
jurisdiction over all lands in Puerto Rico theretofore transferred
to the United States for military purposes and as to which
jurisdiction had not previously been accepted. Cf. Koren, 997 F.
Supp. at 200-01. The district court ruled that this was
insufficient to establish exclusive jurisdiction over the piers
area, relying upon the conclusions of the Brooks memorandum
supplied by plaintiffs in this case.
The Brooks memorandum has as its premise that the
Secretary of War's letter does not cover Navy property5 and, as to
such Navy property, ascribes the acceptance of exclusive
jurisdiction within Roosevelt Roads to specific documentation of
individual parcels covering only about half the base. Local Navy
5
The letter did not say expressly why it viewed the Secretary
of War's July 1945 general acceptance as inadequate, but probably
this rested on the 1940 statute's language requiring that authority
be accepted by an official as to lands "under his immediate
jurisdiction, custody, or control . . . ." Conceivably Brooks had
no wish to concede that the Secretary of War had anything to say
about Navy property.
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officials, says the memorandum, had repeatedly sought an
unequivocal acceptance by the Navy of exclusive jurisdiction over
all Navy property at Roosevelt Roads but had never secured it.
Further, by other references, Brooks' memorandum listed
the dry dock, piers, and related landfill as an area that he (or,
strictly speaking, the Command Judge Advocate) regarded as outside
the scope of any specific federal assumption of exclusive
authority. The district court was persuaded by this conclusion--
the court properly treated the letter as informative rather than
binding on the court--and ruled that the United States lacked
exclusive federal authority over the piers area.
On this appeal, the United States says that no weight
should be accorded to the views of a "mid-level" Navy officer whose
position (it suggests) may have been a draft and was never
expressly adopted by higher authority. However, bypassing any
question as to the scope of the Secretary of War's general
acceptance, the United States says that in any event there is an
express acceptance of authority by a Navy official over the piers
area. It attaches to its brief a copy of a letter, seemingly to
this effect.
The letter, dated September 14, 1942, is from then-Acting
Navy Secretary James Forrestal to the then-Governor of Puerto Rico,
Rexford Tugwell. It begins by citing the 1940 statute requiring a
notice of acceptance to be filed with the ceding state's governor.
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It then describes, by date of condemnation and survey measurements,
the specific parcel of just under 1,300 acres acquired in 1941 for
fleet operating facilities and anchorage security. It concludes by
saying that "jurisdiction" is "accepted" as to the property
effective noon, September 30, 1942.
So far as the letter may apply to the piers area, it
supercedes by its own force the concerns raised by the Brooks
memorandum. The Brooks memorandum is not claimed to create an
estoppel or an authorized renunciation of federal authority;
whatever weight it has depends only on its persuasiveness. By its
own terms it says that a specific Navy acceptance is needed for
Navy property, such as the piers, dry dock, and landfill. The
United States now tenders the Forrestal letter to fill this
supposed gap, thereby quite possibly mooting the larger issue of
the reach of the Secretary of War’s letter.
The plaintiffs' answering brief does not directly address
the Forrestal letter, which was not, of course, part of the
district court record. At oral argument, plaintiffs’ counsel did
not suggest that the Forrestal letter was inauthentic or was merely
a draft. The copy supplied to us bears a date, the stamped
signature of a retained file copy (common enough before
photocopying of originals was possible) and an obscured file stamp.
We take government counsel to be representing that it is genuine
and that the original was sent.
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Nor would it matter that the letter has been belatedly
obtained in this case. No final judgment exists, and the issue of
exclusive federal authority vel non transcends the interests of the
parties. We are free ourselves to take judicial notice of the
existence of government records, Fed. R. Evid. 201(b)(2); see U.S.
v. Bello, 194 F.3d 18, 23-24 (1st Cir. 1999); and the letter is
relevant not for the truth of anything asserted in it but simply as
a legally significant event, like a treaty or a will.
At oral argument plaintiffs' counsel did say briefly that
the Forrestal letter did not “go to” the landfill issue. Although
this comment was not developed, plaintiffs may be intending to
suggest that the piers and dry dock where the plaintiffs worked may
rest on or extend from land reclaimed from the water and therefore
possibly not literally within the metes and bounds set out in the
Forrestal letter as the parcel taken in 1941 and for which
exclusive federal authority was accepted. This suggestion raises
questions that we cannot entirely resolve on this appeal but may at
least narrow.
From the maps and descriptions furnished, it appears that
the Navy acquired in 1941 a significant piece of property bounded
on one side by the bay. As Nieves indicates, construction of the
piers area--channel-dredging, landfilling, and construction of the
dry dock--proceeded apace between 1941 and 1943. 152 F.2d at 719-
20. The United States asserts, and the plaintiffs have not
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specifically disputed, that the property described in the Forrestal
letter was the launching point for the piers area construction.
Whether the Navy built outward from the deeded land into
the bay and whether the work at issue in this lawsuit occurred on
the deeded property or the reclaimed land could be explored in the
district court, if the issue matters; but it may well not matter.
Assuming the Navy filled in submerged land that it did not already
own under the strict terms of the deed or otherwise--an issue on
which we take no view--the United States certainly took the land
when the Navy occupied it and built its permanent facilities upon
it. See Loretto v. Teleprompter Manhattan CATV Corp., 458 U.S.
419, 425-38 (1982).
If this is what happened, the Forrestal letter would
nevertheless encompass that land as well as the expressly deeded
property. The letter adverts to use of the deeded land for fleet
operating facilities, and we know (see Nieves) that construction
was underway when Secretary Forrestal wrote, specifically
confirming the exclusive authority of the United States. He cannot
have intended to exclude from the letter the very facilities being
built then and there for fleet operations, Congressional authority
for which was cited in the letter itself.
We decide only that the Forrestal letter, assuming that
it is authentic and was sent, would constitute an acceptance of
federal authority under the 1940 statute for the parcel it
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describes, any adjacent land reclaimed from the bay, and any piers
and dry docks built upon the parcel or the reclaimed land.
Plaintiffs are free on remand inter alia to dispute the
authenticity of the Forrestal letter, to show that the plaintiffs'
work occurred somewhere entirely different, or to debate the impact
of exclusive federal authority upon their local law claims.
We vacate the order of the district court determining
that the United States lacks exclusive authority over the piers
area at Roosevelt Roads and remand for further proceedings
consistent with this decision. Each side shall bear its own costs
on this appeal.
It is so ordered.
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