Graham v. United States

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
• Decided: April 29, 2025
• Docket: 24-1164
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

Appellate Case: 24-1164 Document: 45-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2025 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT April 29, 2025 _________________________________ Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court RICKY T. GRAHAM; CONNIE L. ARCHULETA,

Plaintiffs - Appellants,

v. No. 24-1164 D.C. No. 1:21-CV-03053-NYW) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, (D. Colo.)

Defendant - Appellee. _________________________________

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* _________________________________

Before HARTZ, TYMKOVICH, and EID, Circuit Judges.** _________________________________

Ricky T. Graham and Connie L. Archuleta (the Grahams) filed suit against the

United States under the Quiet Title Act (QTA), 28 U.S.C. § 2409a, in the United

States District Court for the District of Colorado, seeking a declaration that they hold

title to the mineral interests in a parcel of land (the Parcel) in Adams County,

Colorado. The district court held that the suit was untimely under the QTA’s 12-year

statute of limitations because the Grahams’ predecessors in interest had constructive

* This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. ** After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined unanimously to honor the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore submitted without oral argument. Appellate Case: 24-1164 Document: 45-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2025 Page: 2

notice of the United States’ claim to the mineral interests starting in 1943, when the

United States recorded a warranty deed granting it a fee-simple interest in the Parcel.

The Grahams appeal. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we agree with

the district court and affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Background

The facts are not disputed. In 1902 the United States issued a patent granting

title to the Parcel to David McD. Graham. He continued to own the Parcel, subject to

a mortgage and a notice of lis pendens, until his death. The Parcel then passed

through several subsequent owners before it was conveyed to Ernest L. Tiedeman and

Myra F. Tiedeman in 1929.

After the United States filed a petition to condemn 20,000 acres in Adams

County to establish the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, the Tiedemans conveyed the Parcel

in fee simple to the United States via a warranty deed (the 1943 Deed), which was

recorded on January 26, 1943. The deed provided that the Tiedemans:

do covenant, grant, bargain and agree to and with the United States of America and its assigns, that at the time of the ensealing and delivery of these presents, they are well seized of the premises above conveyed, as of good, sure, perfect, absolute and indefeasible estate of inheritance, in law, in fee simple, and have good right, full power and lawful authority to grant, bargain, sell and convey the same in manner and form as aforesaid, and that the same are free and clear from all former and other grants, bargains, sales, liens, taxes, assessments and encumbrances of whatever kind or nature soever.

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Aplt. App., Vol. 2 at 344. The 1943 Deed did not except mineral rights from the

conveyance and did not mention any prior reservation of mineral rights. No recorded

deed reflects that the Parcel’s mineral estate was ever severed from its surface estate.

There are, however, three internal government documents—all created well

after the Tiedeman conveyance—suggesting that the Parcel’s mineral rights may

have been reserved to David Graham. An internal tract register of the Army Corps of

Engineers (the Corps) prepared on May 20, 1949, states that mineral rights to the

parcel were reserved to David Graham. And two internal Corps letters—one from

1978 and one from 1981—both list a mineral reservation to David Graham as an

encumbrance on the Rocky Mountain Arsenal.

B. Procedural History

The Grahams, who are great-grandchildren of David Graham, filed suit to

quiet title to the Parcel’s mineral estate on November 12, 2021. They alleged that

they did not become aware of the United States’ claim to the Parcel’s mineral rights

until they received a letter from the Bureau of Land Management in 2018 declining to

recognize their claim to the mineral rights.

The United States moved for summary judgment, arguing that the Grahams’

claim was barred by the QTA’s statute of limitations. The district court granted the

motion.

II. DISCUSSION

The sole issue on appeal is whether the 1943 Deed gave the Grahams’

predecessors in interest constructive notice of the United States’ claim to the Parcel’s

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mineral rights. If so, the Grahams’ action is time-barred by the QTA’s 12-year statute

of limitations, 28 U.S.C. § 2409a.

“We review the district court’s rulings on summary judgment de novo.”

Hamric v. Wilderness Expeditions, Inc., 6 F.4th 1108, 1121 (10th Cir. 2021).

Summary judgment is warranted if “there is no genuine dispute as to any material

fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).

No facts are in dispute.

The QTA is the “exclusive means by which adverse claimants [may] challenge

the United States’ title to real property.” Block v. North Dakota ex rel. Bd. of Univ. &

Sch. Lands, 461 U.S. 273, 286 (1983). A cause of action accrues under the Act “on

the date the plaintiff or his predecessor in interest knew or should have known of the

claim of the United States” to the subject property. 28 U.S.C. § 2409a(g). An action

“shall be barred unless it is commenced within twelve years of the date upon which it

accrued.” Id. This “limitations period is strictly construed in favor of the United

States.” Rio Grande Silvery Minnow (Hybognathus amarus) v. Bureau of

Reclamation, 599 F.3d 1165, 1176 (10th Cir. 2010). “[T]he trigger for starting that

twelve-year clock running is an exceedingly light one.” George v. United States,

672 F.3d 942, 944 (10th Cir. 2012) (Gorsuch, J.). “[A]n appreciation of the full

contours of the government’s assertion or claim isn’t even needed to start the QTA’s

clock. It is enough if the plaintiff or her predecessor knew or should have known of

the existence of some assertion—some claim—by the government of an adverse

right.” Id. at 947 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

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“[C]onstructive notice under applicable state recording statutes” is “one of the

conditions that will satisfy the ‘should have known’ language” of the QTA. Amoco

Prod. Co. v. United States, 619 F.2d 1383, 1387 (10th Cir. 1980). Under Colo. Rev.

Stat. § 38-35-109, “proper recording of documents provides constructive notice of

interests affecting title.” Collins v. Scott, 943 P.2d 20, 22 (Colo. App. 1996). “When

a party properly records his interest in property with the appropriate clerk and

recorder, he constructively notifies ‘all the world’ as to his claim.” Franklin Bank,

N.A. v. Bowling, 74 P.3d 308, 313 (Colo. 2003). The Grahams concede that the

1943 Deed was properly recorded.

The issue before us therefore becomes whether the 1943 Deed to the United

States purported to include the mineral rights to the Parcel. It did. It conveyed the

Parcel in fee simple with no reservations or encumbrances. “A good and sufficient

title in fee simple means the legal estate in fee, free and clear of all valid claims,

liens and encumbrances whatsoever,” Walpole v. State Bd. of Land Comm’rs,

163 P. 848, 850 (Colo. 1917) (internal quotation marks omitted), superseded by

statute on other grounds as stated in Driscoll v. State, 297 P. 989, 989 (Colo. 1931),

“except as listed in the deed,” Campbell v. Summit Plaza Assocs., 192 P.3d 465, 473

(Colo. App. 2008). “The reservation of mineral rights constitutes an encumbrance

. . . .” Eychaner v. Springer, 527 P.2d 903, 904 (Colo. 1974). Thus, a reservation of

mineral rights would have been inconsistent with the fee-simple conveyance unless

the reservation was included in the deed. Because the 1943 Deed expressly denied

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“encumbrances of whatever kind or nature soever,” Aplt. App., Vol. 2 at 344, it had

to be understood to include the mineral estate.

Further, conveyances under Colorado law are presumed to include both

mineral and surface rights unless the grantor says otherwise. “It is well established

that a conveyance of land by general description, without any reservation of a

mineral interest, passes title to both the land and the underlying mineral deposits.”

O’Brien v. Vill. Land Co., 794 P.2d 246, 249 (Colo. 1990); accord Great N. Props.,

LLLP v. Extraction Oil & Gas, Inc., 547 P.3d 1110, 1117 (Colo. 2024) (“[I]f a

grantor doesn’t expressly indicate an intent to reserve or except the mineral estate,

the ownership of the surface carries with it the ownership of the underlying

minerals.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Nor was there (as the Grahams

concede) any prior record of severance or reservation of mineral interests in the chain

of title, which may have provided notice that the title received by the United States

was encumbered. Cf. McCormick v. Union Pac. Res. Co., 14 P.3d 346, 349 (Colo.

2000), as modified (Dec. 14, 2000) (“The reservation of a mineral estate necessarily

severs it from the surface estate, creating multiple estates in the same land.”); Calvat

v. Juhan, 206 P.2d 600, 603 (Colo. 1949) (Once the mineral rights are severed from

the surface estate, “possession of the surface [does] not constitute possession of the

severed mineral estate. The possession of each, like the title, became distinct from

that of the other.”). Hence, the 1943 Deed on its face conveyed mineral title to the

United States and, at the least, provided constructive notice that the government

claimed such title.

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Perhaps something authoritative from the United States Government could

have abrogated its claim to the mineral estate and defeated any constructive notice

afforded by the 1943 Deed. But the Corps documents relied on by the Grahams

hardly fill the bill. Not only is there no reason to think they ever became public, see

Rio Grande Silvery Minnow, 599 F.3d at 1185 (subsequent government statements

did not vitiate prior notice in part because “there was no evidence” that the party

against whom the statute of limitations was being invoked “knew of any of these

statements during the relevant time period” (internal quotation marks omitted)), but

even if they had been publicized, “intra-office memoranda, and similar intra-

governmental communications do not bind the government, such that they can effect

an abandonment of property and stop the QTA’s limitations clock.” Id. at 1187

(internal quotation marks omitted).

Nor are we persuaded by Plaintiffs’ suggestion that the internal Corps

documents must have been based on title documents showing reservation of the

mineral rights to their ancestor. They seem to be asserting, in essence, that their

predecessors in title could not have been put on notice by the 1943 Deed to the

United States because the deed could not have conveyed what the Tiedemans did not

have—that is, title to the mineral interests of the Parcel. But even if we were to credit

Plaintiffs’ speculation and assume that they could eventually prove their title, that is

irrelevant to the timeliness of their QTA lawsuit. The task of the district court on the

motion for summary judgment was not to determine whether Plaintiffs had title to the

minerals on the Parcel; it was only to determine when Plaintiffs or their predecessors

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in interest had constructive notice of the government’s claim of title. And the court

correctly resolved that issue by deciding that the 1943 Deed gave notice of the

government’s claim. “The merits of [a] claim or assertion of adverse interest are

irrelevant. One can be on notice of a claim even if that claim lacks any legal merit.”

George, 672 F.3d at 946. The Grahams’ claim accrued in 1943 when the United

States’ deed was recorded. Their lawsuit is therefore untimely under the QTA’s

12-year statute of limitations.

III. CONCLUSION

We AFFIRM the judgment below.

Entered for the Court

Harris L Hartz Circuit Judge