ENRD Successfully Defended the U.S. Forest Service

Photo by USDA FS

In North Dakota v. United States and Billings County, et al. v. United States, ENRD successfully defended the U.S. Forest Service against claims for up to 4624 miles of rights-of-way across federal lands in North Dakota. 

In 2012, North Dakota and four of its counties brought suit under R.S. 2477 (a federal statute granting rights-of-ways across federal lands for highways) to quiet title to rights-of-way over all section lines on National Forest System lands within the 1.2 million-acre Dakota Prairie Grasslands. The State and counties claimed that an 1871 Dakota Territory statute accepted the R.S. 2477 grant and established public highways across all section lines prior to the United States’ reacquisition of these lands in the 1930s. Following extensive discovery on jurisdiction, the North Dakota District Court granted the United States’ motions to dismiss finding that it lacked jurisdiction over the claims because the Quiet Title Act (QTA) limitation period had run before the actions were commenced. The State and counties then appealed. 

NRS attorneys then worked closely with the ENRD Appellate Section on the appeal. In April, 2022, the Eight Circuit affirmed the District Court’s dismissal of the QTA claims as time-barred. The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment that Forest Service travel plans and other management activities in the 1970s and 1980s put the State and counties on notice of a federal claim adverse to their assertion of rights-of-way over section lines throughout the Grasslands. The Eighth Circuit also rejected the State’s and counties’ arguments that the United States had abandoned its claims and that evidence of adverse claims to section lines in certain areas was insufficient to establish notice for all section lines across the Grasslands.