Tennessee Valley Authority v. Jones

692 F. App'x 224
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedMay 12, 2017
Docket16-6342
StatusUnpublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 692 F. App'x 224 (Tennessee Valley Authority v. Jones) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tennessee Valley Authority v. Jones, 692 F. App'x 224 (6th Cir. 2017).

Opinions

[225]*225KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judge.

In 1990, W. Allan Jones Jr. acquired a property interest in a right of way and, according to Jones, a river landing located on land owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Jones then built a series of private water-use structures—a launching ramp, seawall, dock, and boathouse— along the shore of what he determined was the landing. TVA thereafter informed Jones that the structures were unauthorized under the TVA Act, 16 U.S.C. § 831y-l, but Jones refused to remove them. TVA eventually sued Jones for trespass and for violations of the Act. The district court held a bench trial, found that Jones had violated the Act, and ordered him to remove the structures. We affirm.

In 1877, the Saulpaw family owned land on both sides of the Hiwassee River in Tennessee, along part of the river now known as Bates Bend. On the north side the Saulpaws operated a mill, and on the south side they paved a road that ran up to a point on the river directly across from the mill. The Sauipaws’ customers used the road to transport grain to the mill. That year, the Saulpaws sold the property on the south side of the river to W.F. Bates in fee simple, “except a Road fourteen [feet] wide which runs down to the landing at the river just below Saulpaw’s Mill, which Road as it is now laid out and used by the patrons of Saulpaw’s Mill is hereby expressly reserved and is not conveyed[.]”

Bates thereafter conveyed his property on the south side of the river to the Ham-brights. In 1939, the Hambrights sold a strip of their land to TVA. The strip was. 200 to 500 feet wide and stretched the entire length of their property on the southern bank of the river. The deeds from the Hambrights specified that the transferred land—known as Tract CR-1187— was “subject to such rights as may be outstanding in third parties to a 14 foot right of way, extending across the described land to the landing immediately below the former site of Saulpaw Mill.” The Hambrights kept the remainder of their land until Jones bought it in the late 1980s. Jones then asked TVA for permission to construct private water-use facilities on the Hiwassee, TVA denied the request because, per TVA’s 1939 deal with the Hambrights, TVA owned the riverfront land adjacent to Jones’s property.

In 1990, Jones acquired by quitclaim deed the rights to the “Saulpaw Mill Right of Way and Landing.” The deed conveyed to Jones “an existing 14 foot wide right of way leading from W. Allan Jones’ farm known as the Bates Bend Farm on the Hiwassee River to the Landing known as the Saulpaw Mill Landing.... For prior title see deed from G.W. Saulpaw ... to W.H. Bates dated December 1877[.]” Jones interpreted this conveyance to include rights to the “landing” itself, which according to Jones was a 2.5 acre piece of land bordering the river on the west end of Tract CR-1187. Jones thereafter asked TVA to verify his claim to the road and landing. In response, TVA conceded that it had “no right to prohibit [] Jones from using the right-of-way if he c[ould] verify his title to [it],” But TVA explained that, even if Jones had title to the road, the right-of-way would not give him “the necessary landrights for TVA to approve private water use facilities on this right-of-way.” See 18 C.F.R. § 1304.2. '

Over the next 20 years, despite TVA’s warning, Jones made a series of modifications to the area he regarded as the landing. He removed 200 to 300 feet of vegetation from the shoreline, dredged a channel for a launching ramp, constructed a seawall to combat erosion, attached a dock to the wall, and- built an enclosed boathouse. TVA repeatedly told Jones both that it owned the land in question and that his [226]*226activities were unauthorized under § 26a of the TVA Act, which prohibits the construction of any “dam, appurtenant works, or other obstruction, affecting navigation, flood control, or public lands or reservations” without, prior TVA approval (in the form of a “§ 26a permit”). See 16 U.S.C. § 831y-l. TVA posted removal notices for the structures, but Jones refused to comply because he thought he owned the entire purported landing area in fee simple. TVA and Jones tried to resolve the dispute, but failed.

TVA brought this suit in 2016. The district court granted TVA partial judgment on the pleadings, finding that the 1877 deed reserved an easement to the 14-foot-wide road but reserved no property interest in the purported landing area. At trial, the district court determined that Jones had violated § 26a of the Act when he built the shoreline structures described above. The court issued a permanent injunction requiring Jones to remove them. This appeal followed.

We review the district court’s factual findings for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. United States v. Byrd, 689 F.3d 636, 639 (6th Cir. 2012); United States v. Green, 532 F.3d 538, 546 (6th Cir. 2008). We review the district court’s grant of an injunction for abuse of discretion. Ne. Ohio Coal. for Homeless v. Husted, 696 F.3d 580, 591 (6th Cir. 2012).

Jones first argues that the district court should have considered parol evidence to determine the scope of his land rights under the 1877 deed and later conveyances. But whether Jones held title to the road and landing is ultimately beside the point. Section 26a of the Act prohibits the construction of any “obstruction[ ] affecting navigation, flood control, or public lands or reservations” “across, along, or in the [Tennessee] river or any of its tributaries” unless “plans for such construction ... [are] submitted to and approved by” TVA. 16 U.S.C. § 831y-l. “By way of example only, such obstructions may include boat docks, ... boathouses, ... boat launching ramps, ... [and] shoreline stabilization projects[.]” 18 C.F.R. § 1304.1. Jones does not dispute that the Hiwassee River is a tributary of the Tennessee River, or that the structures in question were “obstructions” under the Act. Thus, regardless of whether Jones owned the road and purported landing area in fee simple, the Act still required him to get TVA’s approval before building the dock, boathouse, launching ramp, and seawall. He did not, and thus the construction of those structures violated the Act.

Jones also argues that the district court abused its discretion by entering an injunction that requires him to remove the four structures. To obtain permanent in-junctive relief, TVA needed to show “(1) that it has suffered an irreparable injury; (2) that remedies available at law, such as monetary damages, are inadequate to compensate for that injury; (3) that, considering the balance of hardships between the plaintiff and defendant, a remedy in equity is warranted; and (4) that the public interest would not be disserved by a permanent injunction.” eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C.,

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Bluebook (online)
692 F. App'x 224, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tennessee-valley-authority-v-jones-ca6-2017.