lmbrls, post: 345051, member: 6823 wrote: I would submit that all land in the US is owned by somebody. It is sometimes very difficult to determine who that might be. It's not unowned as much as unknown.
Well said. The specific portion of these great lands that I occupy was quit claimed for monetary consideration by France to the United States in the "Louisiana Purchase". Although there are probably still a few Native Nations that would like to contest title...it's ALL claimed by someone. 😉
I had one in the town of Sonoma when I worked for State Parks. This is from memory...it is a strip about 20' wide and 100' long, something like that. The adjoiner to my survey has two deeds. One in the back which covers the whole width of the property between his other neighbor and our State Park. The other parcel is in the front and it touches the other neighbor but stops 20' short of our State Park boundary. I know the State doesn't own it and the adjoiner is occupying the strip with a dining patio.
My theory is that when the two parcels were split the 20' strip was a driveway to the rear then somehow when they got rejoined the 20' got forgotten about. It didn't affect us, only the adjoiner, so I couldn't justify researching the chain of title back.
I believe the West Jersey Proprietors still exist, although in 2005 they did transfer their records to the State Archives in Trenton but they still retain ownership of the records.
The East Jersey Proprietors dissolved their corporation in 1998, selling any rights to unappropriated land to the stateÛªs Green Acres program and transferring their records to the State Archives in Trenton.
So I guess if you did find any land that was not appropriated, in West Jersey it would still belong to the West Jersey Proprietors and in East Jersey it would be part of the State's Green Acres Program.
There is a distinction between unpatented Public Domain, which I believe is what Paul is talking about, and lands that the Federal Government has acquired by Deed.
We have some land that the GLO patented to private parties who later sold it to the US Government then the US Government quitclaimed it to the State of California. The Feds don't write grant deeds, only quitclaim deeds.
The constitution allows the Feds to have Authority over lands in a state but only 10 square miles or less for forts, ports or other needful buildings, (I'm not looking this up, so I may have the wording a bit off), the land has to be given to the feds by the state.
Of course the PLSS states have a different issue, the lands inside the state were "kept" by the feds as a condition of statehood, many have argued that this was a violation of the equal footing doctrine.
The equal footing doctrine was kept out of the constitution because of the slavery issue, but it is inserted into the acts of acceptance which are the acts creating each state.
One might argue that a state like Nevada can't really be on equal footing when 80% of it's lands are controlled by 49 other states.
This argument was the basis of the sage brush rebellion, and to this day it's a very sensitive issue in the big open country (it continues to upset many out here particularly the ones with split estate when the feds started keeping the minerals under patented lands, don't bring up the name Roosevelt up to some ranchers, you might never get out of that discussion). Many people have "vested" interest in public lands, this was the argument used by the Bundys not to pay grazing fees. I also know of a group that was strong-armed by the Forest Service to give up rights they have, however, that attempt was shot down when a document signed by McKinley was discovered giving them their vested rights.
So there are at least two different "ownerships", one is the states of the PLSS who have Public Lands in trust (ownership kinda) with the Feds, the other is the lands granted under the constitution from states to the feds for forts and ports which is a more comprehensive ownership.
Of course there are waterways and off shore rights too.
I think it's fair to say Federal "ownership" is complicated.
Title is an abstract concept. All Title originates in a sovereign. It is necessary to have a sovereign which has the legal concept of title and the legal infrastructure to enforce title. I believe European style Title originated with conquest, therefore the title is vested in the sovereign until patented out, I think.
So I think all land within the national boundaries is vested in some entity starting with the USA but it may be there is no title until the first patent but I'm not sure about that.
An interesting (and controversial) case to read regarding land title is:
Johnson & Graham's Lessee v. McIntosh, 21 U.S. 8 Wheat. 543 543 (1823)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/21/543/case.html
Essentially Chief Justice Marshall reasons that Title originates in the legal infrastructure of a nation which has the legal concept of title therefore the Native Americans, who had no Title but only a right of occupancy, could not originate a European style title in land. It had to do with a parcel of land having two chains of title, one originating in the Natives and the other in a US Patent.
Thanks for posting that Dave, very insightful.
Several native families, here in Washington, felt that they needed to sell their portion of the reservation. The came tribes came into some money and bought the land back. Passing the title into non-native hands. This removed any sovereign rights the land might of had and therefore unable to get back.
I will take some time, later and peruse that case; thanks again for posting.
Dougie
No
No
Dave Karoly, post: 345059, member: 94 wrote: ...Essentially Chief Justice Marshall reasons that Title originates in the legal infrastructure of a nation which has the legal concept of title therefore the Native Americans, who had no Title but only a right of occupancy, could not originate a European style title in land. It had to do with a parcel of land having two chains of title, one originating in the Natives and the other in a US Patent.
That is interesting Dave. Thanks for the post. I plan on reading more of it after I get my day a little farther down the line. While I did not read the article in its entirety, your synopsis seems accurate.
That's a pretty uppity 'white guy's' explanation of why the Nez Perce never caught a break and it supports Manifest Destiny in a twisted sort of way. Kind of like arguing the prosecution of murder of a person without a Social Security number couldn't be prosecuted because the existence of the decedent fell outside of the concept of being a citizen to which murder laws apply. :pinch:
Please tell that to the USFS and BLM. They often use the term "BLM owned lands" or "USFS owned lands".
They don't like it when you remind them that the land does not belong to them as an agency, but rather to them as a (legal) citizen of the United States.
Scott Zelenak, post: 345019, member: 327 wrote: I'm not a boundary surveyor, so I wouldn't know.
But while staring at the brake lights of the car in front of me in traffic this morning, I wondered, is there truly any land in the U.S. which no one owns?
Philosophical stuff aside, answer is no. There are many legal rules (common law, statutes, regulations) in place to guarantee this doesn't happen. Still, many instances where people claim "no one owns it" and so try to acquire it somehow.
For instance; real property can't be abandoned or lost like personal property can be. If it appears lost it is probably owned by the State via escheat. If it appears abandoned, it's not, can't be, would be still held by the one attempting to abandon or their heirs/assigns or adverse possessor or taken for taxes. In a similar matter a joint tenancy becomes tenants in common as soon as only one tenant is surviving. Everything designed so all real property is always owned by someone.
I have found that whoever can maintain possession, exercises ownership.
Our Gov. system of laws is a social contract that can be broken at any time.
Here is one way to look at it.
You can go out into the extreme wilderness and claim a small piece of public ground.
As long as you can maintain possession (perhaps by staying under the radar), it's yours. There are Hispanic drug cartels that have done this very thing in my area.
They scare off the public with guns and intimidation. The public agencies for whatever reason leave them alone. They may only own the land for a couple years, and when they decide to move on, the ownership automatically reverts back to the public.
paden cash, post: 345073, member: 20 wrote: That is interesting Dave. Thanks for the post. I plan on reading more of it after I get my day a little farther down the line. While I did not read the article in its entirety, your synopsis seems accurate.
That's a pretty uppity 'white guy's' explanation of why the Nez Perce never caught a break and it supports Manifest Destiny in a twisted sort of way. Kind of like arguing the prosecution of murder of a person without a Social Security number couldn't be prosecuted because the existence of the decedent fell outside of the concept of being a citizen to which murder laws apply. :pinch:
Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being without lawful justification or excuse and with malice aforethought. Malice may be expressed or implied. Examples of justification are killing in war or self-defense. Examples of excuse is killing due to accident or misadventure. Where malice is absent then the killing may be manslaughter (voluntary where the mitigating factor is sudden quarrel or heat of passion and involuntary where the activity causing death was unlawful but the perpetrator had no intention to actually kill).
I know that because I spent October serving on a murder trial jury. We found two defendants guilty of second degree murder (unpremeditated murder) and one not guilty of all charges (we couldn't place her in the fight beyond a reasonable doubt although she may be liable in civil court because there is some evidence). They had us determine G/NG of first degree murder, then the lesser included offense of second degree murder, then the lesser included offense of voluntary manslaughter, then the lesser included offense of involuntary manslaughter except that once we found guilty we stopped going down to the next lesser offense.
RADAR, post: 345088, member: 413 wrote: You might find THIS to be an interesting article.
Pretty disgusting really.
On a humorous note I remember a "Taxi" episode where Louie DePalma was distraught when he found out Latka would soon become an American citizen.
"What's happening to this country? Where did all the REAL Americans go?" he lamented, "The Irish, the Italians, the Polish..."
On a not-so-humorous note, recently the Mayor of Roanoke, Virginia seems to want to invoke something similar to the Japanese Detention Camps of WWII in his letter concerning the recent influx of middle eastern refugees:
I'm approaching P&R here and it wouldn't surprise me to see it yanked...
I have been seeing more and more messages labeled as "removed from public view". I suspect this will increase as the months go by.
Do you think Mr. Franklin was talking about our friend Dave Bowers here:
A hundred bucks says yes...;-)
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There are several things about this thread that interest and intrigue me.
One is the concept of "public trust". Inasmuch that the government is (supposed to be) an agency that acts on behalf of the governed public, it makes sense that the unpatented lands of the US are "managed" by the federal government. And, in this capacity, it also makes sense that the feds would act in the capacity of a fee title owner to manage that land in a way that preserves the integrity of that land so that at some point, if it were to be patented to another entity, it would not be "spoiled". For example, if some unscrupulous individuals were to come on to lands held in public trust and dump a bunch of chemical waste on it, that would likely damage the land in such a way that it is not desirable for anyone to use for other purposes. f course, there are plenty of instances, I'm sure, where the federal government acted in a manner that was beyond just "preserving" the property.
So it is a careful balance that the federal government must maintain wherein they not only determine what the "will of the public" is in terms of how the land should be used/managed, but also to determine what the proper level of authority they exert to protect and preserve these lands held in public trust.
I often think of the statement done on subdivision maps around here wherein an owner/subdivider "dedicates to the public, for public use" fee title to some land. There is even a clause that states that if the public purpose for which land was dedicated to the public is determined to no longer exist, then the public has to reconvey the property back to the original owner. And there is all kinds of processes and whatnot that have to happen for not only the original need for this land to be granted to the public (like for a park or storm drain retention pond or whatever), but also an entirely other process for the public to determine that this need no longer exists so the land can be disposed of. In all cases, the lands are held by the local agency on behalf of the public.
Another thing about this thread that intrigues me is the concept of possession. I do think that possession should be a factor in determining "legal ownership". And in many states, I believe that there are parts of title law, specifically adverse possession, that do consider this. It is why we show things like occupation lines on survey maps. It indicates where there may be a discrepancy between a title line per the deed and an occupation line on the ground.
But the problem with possession is that it is an indiscriminate thing. Anyone can possess something regardless of their status as a citizen, or adult, or member of an organization, or whatever other criteria. Possession doesn't care about any laws. And it flies in the face of convention. But it also doesn't have to consider what is fair and/or equitable. Possession can be used by both reasonable and unreasonable individuals.
Anyway, this thread really has me thinking a lot.
