Government Lots on Navigable Rivers Are Bounded by the River (Not the State Line): State Retains Title to In‑Channel Island Accretions That Later Attach to Shore

1. Introduction

State v. Leland resolves competing claims to surface and mineral interests along the Yellowstone River near the North Dakota–Montana border in McKenzie County. The dispute arose in the context of oil-and-gas development: Whiting Oil and Gas Corporation filed an interpleader (Whiting v. Dean, Case No. 27-2016-CV-00040) to determine royalty ownership, and the State filed a quiet title action (State v. Leland, Case No. 27-2019-CV-00312) to adjudicate ownership of the same lands, including the surface. The cases were consolidated and bifurcated: Phase I tried boundary/formation issues; Phase II addressed mineral ownership (using stipulated acreage calculations).

The parties stipulated the Yellowstone River was navigable at statehood and stipulated the ordinary high water mark (OHWM) location for purposes of the case. Two principal tracts were litigated:

• “North Island”: land alleged by the State to be an island formed within the riverbed and thus owned by the State.
• “West Bank”: land between the present river channel and the ND–MT border; the State claimed it originated as an in‑channel island (state-owned) that later attached to the Montana-side shore.

The key legal issues were (i) how to classify river-created land under North Dakota’s accretion/avulsion and island statutes (N.D.C.C. ch. 47-06), (ii) whether a 1950 State Treasurer deed conveying “Lots One (1), Two (2) and Three (3) … less parts eroded by the Yellowstone River” transferred interests across the river to the state line, and (iii) whether equitable or limitations defenses could bar the State’s sovereign-title claims.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Supreme Court of North Dakota:

• Affirmed the judgment declaring the State does not own the North Island, holding the district court’s finding that the river surrounded preexisting shoreland (within the meaning of N.D.C.C. § 47-06-10) was not clearly erroneous; the State’s reliance on a presumption from Woodland v. Woodland and a “reclamation” statute (N.D.C.C. § 47-06-06) failed.
• Reversed the judgment declaring the State does not own the West Bank, holding that although the district court’s factual finding (formation as an in‑channel island later attached to shore) was not clearly erroneous, the court erred as a matter of law by concluding the 1950 deed’s “government lots” extended westward across a navigable river to the ND–MT border. Under North Dakota and federal survey principles, government lots bounded by a navigable river are bounded by the river, not by a fixed meridian state line; therefore, the State never conveyed the West Bank and retains title.
• Rejected laches on the facts (without deciding the full doctrinal limits of laches against sovereign/public-trust claims) and declined to consider a new statute-of-limitations accrual theory raised for the first time on appeal.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited (and How They Shaped the Decision)

A. Sovereign title, navigability, and the public trust

• Reep v. State, 2013 ND 253, ¶ 14: Reinforced the “equal footing” principle—upon statehood, North Dakota took title to beds of navigable waters within its borders.
• Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544, 551 (1981): Clarified that after statehood, title questions are governed by state law, supporting the opinion’s turn to N.D.C.C. ch. 47-06 for allocation rules.
• Sorum v. State, 2020 ND 175, ¶¶ 42-43: Supplied the framework that changing riverbeds affect title under state law and emphasized the State’s trustee role under the public trust doctrine.
• State ex rel. Sprynczynatyk v. Mills, 1999 ND 75, ¶¶ 5-6, 592 N.W.2d 591: Established that the OHWM is ambulatory (not fixed in time) and is the extent of the State’s sovereign interest boundary.
• State ex rel. Sprynczynatyk v. Mills, 523 N.W.2d 537, 543-44 (N.D. 1994): Informed the discussion of “correlative interests” between the State and riparian owners in the shore zone.

B. Accretion/avulsion and statutory allocation of river-formed land

• Norby v. Estate of Kuykendall, 2015 ND 232, ¶¶ 8-10, 12-13: Provided the modern articulation of when riparian doctrines apply (only when the boundary is described by water), and appeared again when the Court distinguished why Norby did not control the State’s sovereign/island claim to the West Bank.
• J.P. Furlong Enters., Inc. v. Sun Expl. & Prod. Co., 423 N.W.2d 130, 132-34 (N.D. 1988) and Kim-Go v. J.P. Furlong Enters., Inc., 460 N.W.2d 694, 696 n.4 (1990): Supported the proposition that North Dakota’s statutes in N.D.C.C. ch. 47-06 encode common-law accretion/avulsion consequences.
• Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep't of Env't Prot., 560 U.S. 702, 708 (2010): Supplied a clear definitional contrast between gradual/imperceptible accretion and sudden/perceptible avulsion.
• Hogue v. Bourgois, 71 N.W.2d 47, 52-55 (N.D. 1955): Was central on two points: (i) accretions can accrue to islands (not just mainlands), and (ii) N.D.C.C. § 47-06-10 covers situations where a stream forms a new arm and surrounds land, whether by sudden avulsion or gradual flood-stage processes—undercutting the State’s attempt to make the “avulsion vs. accretion” label dispositive for North Island ownership.
• Woodland v. Woodland, 147 N.W.2d 590, 600 (N.D. 1966): The State invoked this for a presumption that river course changes are by accretion rather than avulsion. The Court limited Woodland to its context (county-boundary jurisdiction with “no evidence” of mechanism) and held it did not create a presumption “against an avulsive event forming an island” or in favor of “in-channel accretion” for the North Island.

C. Proof standards and deference to factfinding

• Gimbel v. Magrum, 2020 ND 181, ¶ 5: Provided the clearly erroneous standard for bench-trial fact findings and deference to credibility determinations.
• Farmers Ins. Exch. v. Schirado, 2006 ND 141, ¶ 12: Supported the Court’s acceptance of circumstantial evidence (aerial photo comparisons) to prove land-formation history where direct evidence was absent.
• Kershaw v. Finnson, 2022 ND 165, ¶ 16 and Byron v. Gerring Indus., Inc., 328 N.W.2d 819, 822 (N.D. 1982): Reinforced deference to trial-court evaluation of conflicting expert testimony (crucial to West Bank formation).

D. Government lots, surveys, and navigable-water boundaries (key to the “new” rule)

• Bovey-Shute Lumber Co. v. Erickson, 170 N.W. 628, 630 (N.D. 1918): Described federal patents as instruments conveying legal title, framing the analysis of the 1916 patent and the “official plat” system.
• St. Paul & Pac. R.R. Co. v. Schurmeier, 74 U.S. 272, 285, 288-89 (1868): Provided the federal survey-grid backdrop and the principle that title bordering navigable streams should stop at the stream.
• Gardner v. Green, 271 N.W. 775, 779-82 (N.D. 1937), and the quoted City of Peoria v. Cent. Nat'l Bank, 79 N.E. 296, 298 (Ill. 1906): Anchored the doctrine that meander lines are not true boundaries; the watercourse is the boundary for patents of lands along waterways, and subdivision lines extend to the water.
• State v. Loy, 20 N.W.2d 668, 670 (N.D. 1945): Stated the specific navigable-river rule: a fractional lot bordering a navigable river is bounded by the bank of the river, not by the thread of the stream (and a fortiori not by land beyond the river).
• Oberly v. Carpenter, 274 N.W. 509, 513 (N.D. 1937) (quoting Jefferis v. E. Omaha Land Co., 134 U.S. 178, 188 (1890)): Explained the ambulatory nature of water boundaries—if the water line is the boundary, it remains the boundary as it shifts.
• Currie v. Walkinshaw, 746 P.2d 1045, 1049 (Idaho 1987) and Lopez v. Smith, 145 So.2d 509, 516 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1962): Used descriptively to explain what “government lots” are and why fractional lots exist near water.
• Maunalua Bay Beach Ohana 28 v. State, 222 P.3d 441, 444 (Haw. Ct. App. 2009): Quoted in Norby v. Estate of Kuykendall for the principle that riparian doctrines do not apply when boundaries are described without reference to water.

E. Laches, limitations, and appellate preservation

• Am. Fed. Bank v. Grommesh, 2021 ND 228, ¶ 31: Set out laches elements and the defendant’s burden.
• Stenehjem ex rel. State v. Nat'l Audubon Soc'y, Inc., 2014 ND 71, ¶¶ 12, 17-18: Supplied the cautionary rule that laches generally is inapplicable (or at least heavily constrained) when the government enforces public rights/sovereign interests.
• Twin City Tech. LLC v. Williams Cnty., 2022 ND 63, ¶ 11: Confirmed laches is generally a fact question reviewed for clear error.
• United States v. California, 332 U.S. 19, 40 (1947), Corvallis Sand & Gravel Co. v. State Land Bd., 439 P.2d 575, 581 (Or. 1968), and Hous. Auth. of City of Atlantic City v. State, 456 A.2d 534, 538 (N.J. Super. Ct. Ch. Div. 1983): Cited to show other jurisdictions’ reluctance to apply laches against sovereign/public-trust property claims.
• Overbo v. Overbo, 2024 ND 233, ¶ 8: Invoked for the party-presentation principle—courts generally avoid deciding unraised/unbriefed theories.
• Dunford v. Tryhus, 2009 ND 212, ¶ 6: Provided general accrual principles for statutes of limitation.
• Great Plains Royalty Corp. v. Earl Schwartz Co., 2021 ND 62, ¶ 32: Applied to reject a new statute-of-limitations accrual argument raised first on appeal.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

A. Baseline framework: Navigable rivers, OHWM, and statutory allocation

The Court began from a shared premise: because the Yellowstone River was navigable at statehood, North Dakota took title to the riverbed under the equal-footing doctrine (supported by Reep v. State and Montana v. United States). The State’s sovereign title extends to the OHWM, which is ambulatory (State ex rel. Sprynczynatyk v. Mills (1999)). How newly formed lands are allocated—whether between the State and private owners, or among private owners—turns on the specific North Dakota statutes in N.D.C.C. ch. 47-06 and on whether the land formed as (i) accretion to a bank, (ii) an island formed in the bed of a navigable stream, or (iii) a severed/surrounded tract under the “new arm” statute.

B. North Island: N.D.C.C. § 47-06-10 controls when the river surrounds preexisting shoreland

The State’s claim depended on categorizing the North Island as an island “formed in the beds of” a navigable stream (N.D.C.C. § 47-06-08), which would presumptively belong to the State. The district court, however, found—based primarily on 1939 vs. 1949 aerial photographs and expert interpretation—that the river’s channel change effectively surrounded an identifiable piece of preexisting farmland, producing an “island” that was a recognizable remnant of mainland rather than newly built land in the channel.

The Supreme Court treated that as a factfinding subject to clear-error review, accepted circumstantial proof (Farmers Ins. Exch. v. Schirado), and held the finding was not clearly erroneous. That factual classification triggered N.D.C.C. § 47-06-10:

“If a stream, navigable or not navigable, in forming itself a new arm divides itself and surrounds land belonging to the owner of the shore and thereby forms an island, the island belongs to such owner.”

Critically, the Court then removed “avulsion vs. accretion” as a decisive legal lever. Drawing from Hogue v. Bourgois, it emphasized § 47-06-10 covers both sudden avulsive events and more gradual flood-stage channeling so long as the stream forms an arm and surrounds the owner’s land. Thus:

• The State’s reliance on Woodland v. Woodland failed because that presumption applied only where there was “no evidence” of how a river changed course and, in any event, did not create a special presumption about island formation or ownership under § 47-06-10.
• The State’s “failure to reclaim” theory under N.D.C.C. § 47-06-06 failed because that statute addresses a different physical phenomenon: a distinguishable piece of bank carried away and united to an opposite or other bank, allowing reclamation from the owner of the bank to which it attaches. The North Island was not found to have “united” with a State-owned bank.

C. West Bank: State ownership preserved where land began as an in-channel island and the deed’s lots did not extend across a navigable river

On the West Bank, the district court made a key factual finding: the tract formed as an in-channel island, vegetated, grew, and later attached to the west bank. That matters because:

• If the land began as an island “formed in the beds of” a navigable stream (N.D.C.C. § 47-06-08), it belonged to the State at inception.
• As Hogue v. Bourgois explains, islands—like mainlands—can receive accretions; the owner of the island owns accretions to the island even if they eventually connect the island to the mainland, up to the line of contact.

The Supreme Court upheld the formation finding under deference principles (Kershaw v. Finnson; Byron v. Gerring Indus., Inc.). The legal reversal came from the next step: whether the State nevertheless conveyed the West Bank away by the 1950 deed describing “Lots One (1), Two (2) and Three (3) … less parts eroded by the Yellowstone River.”

The district court had concluded these “lots” extended to the ND–MT border (a fixed meridian line), so the deed transferred interests across the river. The Supreme Court held that was legal error because government lots adjacent to a navigable river are bounded by the riverbank, not by boundaries beyond the water. The Court’s chain of reasoning was survey-and-title specific:

• Government “lots” are products of the federal public-land survey system; where water creates fractional sections, lot boundaries follow the shoreline’s curves (explained with help from Currie v. Walkinshaw and Lopez v. Smith).
• Meander lines are not true boundaries; the water is the boundary (Gardner v. Green, including its discussion of meander lines and its quotation from City of Peoria v. Cent. Nat'l Bank).
• North Dakota’s specific navigable-river rule for fractional lots: “the boundary … is the bank of the river” (State v. Loy).

With that corrected boundary premise, the West Bank could not have been part of the lots conveyed in 1950, because it lay across (or beyond) the navigable river boundary of those lots. Therefore, given the unchallenged factual determination that the West Bank began as a state-owned island and only later attached, the State’s title was never divested by the deed.

The Court also clarified how this conclusion fits with Norby v. Estate of Kuykendall. In Norby, a private claimant on the Montana side was blocked because his boundary was a fixed state line (so riparian accretion doctrines did not help him). Here, the State was not trying to use private-party riparian equity to cross a fixed boundary; it was asserting sovereign ownership of an island formed in a navigable riverbed under N.D.C.C. § 47-06-08 (and accretions to it under N.D.C.C. § 47-06-05 as applied to islands by Hogue).

D. Defenses: laches and limitations

The defendants urged laches (Am. Fed. Bank v. Grommesh). The Court declined to decide the broader question whether laches can ever bar sovereign/public-trust title claims (flagging Stenehjem ex rel. State v. Nat'l Audubon Soc'y, Inc. and persuasive authorities like United States v. California and Corvallis Sand & Gravel Co. v. State Land Bd.), because that threshold issue was not litigated below (Overbo v. Overbo). Even assuming laches could apply, the Court affirmed its rejection on the facts, emphasizing the “ever changing” river and non-static property configuration, which undermines claims of settled prejudicial reliance.

On statutes of limitation, the Kuykendall Group shifted its accrual theory on appeal. The Court refused to consider the new accrual contention as forfeited (Great Plains Royalty Corp. v. Earl Schwartz Co.), while noting general accrual principles from Dunford v. Tryhus.

3.3 Impact

A. Title certainty in river-border counties and energy development

The opinion’s most consequential doctrinal move is its firm correction of the “lots extend to the state line” approach: when a deed conveys government lots created by the federal survey system adjacent to a navigable river, the lot’s boundary is the riverbank (as it migrates), not a fixed geopolitical border beyond the water. This matters acutely in oil-and-gas contexts because royalty ownership often turns on whether a tract is inside a private chain of title or remains sovereign land, and because mineral interests can be severed and fractionated across many successors (as illustrated by the interpleader posture and the stipulated acreage approach).

B. Practical rule for litigants: classify the landform before arguing conveyances

State v. Leland shows that formation classification (in-channel island vs. accretion to a bank vs. surrounded mainland) can be dispositive. The Court effectively required litigants to:

• Anchor the claim in the correct N.D.C.C. ch. 47-06 provision (§ 47-06-08 vs. § 47-06-10 vs. § 47-06-05),
• Then test whether any conveyance actually reaches the disputed land given survey-based boundaries for government lots on navigable streams.

C. Limits on importing “presumptions” into statutory island disputes

By limiting Woodland v. Woodland, the Court cautioned against treating generalized accretion presumptions as universal tie-breakers—especially where the statute (N.D.C.C. § 47-06-10) makes the mechanism of channel change less relevant than the end-state: a new arm surrounds the owner’s land.

D. Government delay defenses remain uncertain at the margins

The Court left open (because unpreserved) whether laches can ever bar North Dakota from asserting sovereign/public-trust property claims, even while signaling strong skepticism through its citations. Future litigants may more directly tee up that issue, especially where the State’s conduct resembles proprietary action rather than public-right enforcement.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Navigable at statehood: If a river was navigable when North Dakota became a state, the State obtained title to the riverbed then (equal-footing doctrine). Private deeds generally cannot convey what the grantor did not own.
• Public trust doctrine: The State holds navigable waters (and related sovereign interests) “in trust” for public uses like navigation and recreation (Sorum v. State).
• Ordinary high water mark (OHWM): The boundary of the State’s sovereign riverbed interest; it can move over time (it is “ambulatory”) (State ex rel. Sprynczynatyk v. Mills (1999)).
• Accretion vs. avulsion: Accretion is slow, incremental change; avulsion is sudden, perceptible change (Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep't of Env't Prot.).
• Government lots & meander lines: Government lots are irregular parcels created by the federal survey system, often along water. “Meander lines” track the shoreline for measurement; they usually are not the legal boundary—the water is (Gardner v. Green).
• N.D.C.C. § 47-06-08 vs. § 47-06-10: § 47-06-08 tends to award the State islands formed in the bed of a navigable stream; § 47-06-10 awards to the shore owner an “island” created when the stream forms a new arm and surrounds existing shoreland (regardless of whether the channel change was sudden or gradual, per Hogue v. Bourgois).
• “Clearly erroneous” review: Appellate courts usually will not reweigh competing experts or redo credibility calls after a bench trial (Gimbel v. Magrum).
• Issue preservation/forfeiture: A party generally cannot change legal theories on appeal; new arguments not raised below may not be heard (Great Plains Royalty Corp. v. Earl Schwartz Co.).

5. Conclusion

State v. Leland makes two durable contributions to North Dakota river-title law. First, it reinforces that N.D.C.C. § 47-06-10 governs “surrounded land” islands—so ownership can remain with the original shoreland owner even when a navigable river creates a new channel around the land, and generalized accretion presumptions from Woodland v. Woodland do not override that statutory allocation. Second, it establishes a decisive survey-and-title rule for boundary litigation at the water’s edge: deeds conveying federal “government lots” adjacent to a navigable river do not extend across the river to fixed external lines (such as a state border); the riverbank is the boundary. Applying that rule, the State retained title to the West Bank because it originated as a state-owned in-channel island and was never included in the State’s 1950 conveyance of river-bounded lots.