Adverse Possession: Elements Court Jurisdiction, Procedure and Review: Tribal Immunity

摘要

Plaintiffs assert ownership to the mineral estate that they allege was severed around 100 years ago. They sue Comstock, who is the operator of three wells on a unit that encompasses the disputed acreage. Comstock is the oil and gas lessee from several different parties, including the Alabama-Coushatta Tribes of Texas. The basis for plaintiffs' ownership claim is that the disputed land lies within the boundaries of the Escobeda Survey. The trial court denied the Tribe's plea to the jurisdiction and then granted Comstock's motion for summary judgment. Conley and the Tribe appealed. Held: reversed as to the Tribe's plea to the jurisdiction and affirmed as to Comstock. A Tribe may only be sued where either Congress has authorized the suit or the Tribe has waived its immunity. Such immunity applies to actions both on and off of any reservation. While noting that there are cases stating that Tribal immunity will not attach to a declaratory judgment action, the court concluded that a statutory claim for trespass to try title is not one for which the Tribe has waived its immunity as may be the case where it enters into contracts or oil and gas leases. Texas may not diminish the scope of federally-granted Tribal immunity and thus the plea to the jurisdiction should have been granted. The plaintiffs argued that the boundaries of the Escobeda survey had been determined in earlier actions that attempted to deal with alleged surveying errors. The court concluded that the earlier litigation did not resolve the surveying issues raised by the plaintiff as to the proper location of the Escobeda survey. The court applied the doctrine of presumed lost deed which is based on the assumption that a person who owns real property will not acquiesce for a long period of time to its use by a third party. This doctrine is an offshoot of the adverse possession doctrine that exists as a common law creation. While normally the application of the doctrine involves a question of fact, in some cases the issue can be decided as a question of law as was done in this case. The summary judgment evidence in this case showed mat none of me owners in the Escobeda chain of tide challenged the use of the land for nearly a century. Finally, the court found mat plaintiffs had not overcome the affirmative defense of the statute of limitations. At me time that the adverse possession of the surface began, mere had been no severance of the mineral estate so mat continued possession of the surface estate was sufficient to adversely possess both the surface and mineral interests even where uiere had been a post-entry severance.