Federal Court Boots U.S., NRCS from Landlocked Property Dispute

MEMPHIS (LN) — U.S. District Judge J. Daniel Breen granted the federal defendants’ motion to dismiss Friday, finding the Quiet Title Act expressly prohibits adverse possession claims against the United States and that the plaintiffs’ complaint failed to plausibly allege the adversity element required for a prescriptive easement under Tennessee law.

The plaintiffs own a one-fourth undivided interest in a hunting parcel near Locust Grove Road in Dyer County that became landlocked after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers enlarged the Obion River channel in the 1960s. They alleged they used a levee path crossing the adjacent Adams Property for twenty-eight years to access the hunting land and sought to establish a prescriptive easement over that route.

The court rejected their argument that the Quiet Title Act’s bar on adverse possession claims does not apply when a prescriptive easement ripened before the government acquired its property interest. Citing Hallauer v. Chicago Title Insurance Co., the court held the plain language of 28 U.S.C. § 2409a(n) “bars all claims based on adverse possession, no matter when the claim accrued.”

The court also found the complaint did not allege use of the levee path was “adverse” or made “without permission” as required under Tennessee law. While the plaintiffs argued in their response brief that decades of unpermitted use raises a presumption of adversity, the court said it could not consider new allegations contained only in opposition filings.

“Because such memoranda do not constitute pleadings under Rule 7(a),” the court wrote, citing Bates v. Green Farms Condo. Ass’n, “the court may not take into account additional facts asserted in a memorandum opposing the motion to dismiss.”

The plaintiffs also conceded dismissal of their easement-by-law claim against the federal defendants.

On their Fifth Amendment takings claim, the court held the plaintiffs cannot sustain a takings action without first establishing a valid property interest. Having failed to plausibly allege a prescriptive easement against the federal defendants, the takings claim also fell.

The case will proceed against Drew T. Adams and Abbie G. Adams, who purchased the Adams Property in May 2023 and subsequently built a fence prohibiting access to the hunting parcel by land.