WALKER
v.
THE STATE HARBOR COMMISSIONERS
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A property owner claimed land submerged beneath San Francisco Bay waters based on grants from the pueblo's alcaldes and a state legislative act of 1861. The Supreme Court affirmed the California Supreme Court's interpretation that the legislative act's term "tide lands" referred only to lands alternately covered and uncovered by tides, not permanently submerged lands, and therefore did not confirm the alcalde grants for the disputed underwater property. The Court held that it must defer to a state's highest court's interpretation of its own statutes affecting real property titles when no federal question is involved.
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Mr. Justice FIELD,
after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court, as follows:
The alcaldes of the pueblo of San Francisco possessed no authority to grant any lands covered by the tide-waters of the bay. The grants, therefore, under which the plaintiff claims were inoperative to pass any title to the premises. This is admitted by counsel on both sides, and the only question presented by the record for our determination is whether the grants were confirmed by the act of the legislature of May 14th, 1861.
That question is not an open one for this court. It has received its authoritative solution by the, judgment of the Supreme Court-'of the State. In the case of The People v. Davidson,† the questiou arose in that court whether the premises, upon-which the defendants there had constructed a wharf, which were the same premises in controversy here, belonged to the defendants, who claimed them under the same"'alcalde grants and the same act of the legislature of May 14th, 1861, and the court, after full and extended con.sideration, held that the terms “ tide la-nds,” used in the act, applied only to lauds .covered and uncovered by the tides, and did not include lands permanently submerged by the waters of the bay of San Francisco; that the alcalde grants confirmed by the act were grants only of tide lands as thus defined, and did not embrace the grants under which the defendants claimed, and that the premises, so far as they lay below the lino of low-water mark, belonged to the State.
It is not for us to express .any opinion as to what-would be our construction.of the act had the Supreme Court-of the State never spoken on the subject. Iu,tke construction of the statutes of a State, and especially those affecting titles to real property, where no Federal question arises, this court follows the adjudications of the highest court of the State. Its. interpretation is accepted as the true interpretation, whatever may be our opinion of its original soundness. It becomes a part of the statute, as much so as-if incorporated into the body of it, and in following the statute as thus interpreted we only apply to a local question the law of the place. As has been often remarked, infiuile mischiefs would result if, in-construing State statutes affecting titles to real property, where no Federal question is involved, a. different, rule were adopted by the Federal tribunals from that of the State courts.
Judgment aeexrmed.
†
30 California, 379.
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Trustees v. Martin, 268 U.S. 458 (U.S. 1925)…uliarly questions of local law to be ascertained and established by the state courts. For that reason federal courts" ordinarily hold themselves bound by the interpretation of state statutes by the state courts. Walker v. State Harbor Commissioners, 17 Wall. 648; Barrett v. Holmes, 102 U. S. 651; Greekie v. Kirby Carpenter Co., 106 U. S. 379, 385; McArthur v. Scott, 113 U. S. 340; Schley v. Pullman Car Co., 120 U. S. 575, 580; Bucher v. Cheshire Railroad Co., 125 U. S. 555; Ridings v. Johnson, 128 U. S. 212…1 / 2
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Cummings v. Chicago, 188 U.S. 410 (U.S. 1903)
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Fairfield v. Cnty. of Gallatin, 100 U.S. 47 (U.S. 1879)…his court will adopt and follow the decisions of the State courts in the construction of their own Constitution and statutes, when that construction has been settled by the decisions of its highest tribunal.” In Walker v. State Harbor Commissioners (17 Wall. 648), we said, “ This court follows the adjudications of the highest court of the State ” in the construction of its statutes. “ Its interpretation is accepted as the true interpretation, whatever may be our opinion of its original soundness.” See also…
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