ELR Citation: ELR 20094
No(s). 72-397 (U.S. Dec 17, 1973)

Under federal common law, title to land first submerged by erosion and then re-exposed by stream channelization of the Colorado River vests in the plaintiffs as riparian land owners rather than in Arizona as owner of the riverbed. An analysis of the interests of the parties in the land compels the conclusion that the surfacing should be treated as an accretion rather than an avulsion, and neither the equal-footing doctrine nor the Submerged Lands Act abrogates the federal law of accretion and supports the state's claim to title under state property law. The state supreme court's decision is reversed and remanded.

A dissent argues that the majority has wrongly interpreted and applied the equal-footing doctrine, and thereby reached a result wholly inconsistent with the policy underlying that principle. Under the Court's decision, the dissent contends, the original 13 states are free to develop and apply their own rules of property law to govern conflicting claims for exposed river beds, whereas states admitted after 1789 are bound by federal common law, and thus are not in actuality on equal footing with the original states.

Counsel for Plaintiffs
Elmer C. Coker
Leonard C. Langford
Suite J, Luhrs-Central Building
132 South Central Avenue
Phoenix, AZ 85004

Counsel for Defendants
Gary K. Nelson Attorney General
Dale R. Shumway Asst. Attorney General
State Office Building
1632 W. Adams Street
Phoenix, AZ 85007

Counsel for Amicus Curiae State of California
Evelle J. Younger Attorney General
Jay L. Shavelson Asst. Attorney General
Warren J. Abbott
Jerold A. Krieger Deputy Attorneys General
6000 State Building
San Francisco, CA 94102

Counsel for Amicus Curiae United States of America
Erwin N. Griswold Solicitor General
Kent Frizzell Asst. Attorney General
Edmund B. Clark
Carl Strass
Department of Justice
Washington, DC 20530

Counsel for Amicus Curiae Santa Fe Pacific R.R. Co.
Philip W. Von Ammon
Fennemore, Craig, Von Ammon & Udall
900 First National Bank Building
411 N. Central Avenue
Phoenix, AZ 85004

MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.