Cite as: 523 U. S. 767 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
a statute outlining the confines of a voting district was necessarily sound in part (so far as New Jersey might be concerned) in the absence of a physical description making a claim to the new land as well as the old. So, registrations of vital statistics did not on their face refer to events beyond the original Island (though knowledge of the geography would point to hospitals on the new land in a number of instances). And the use of mailing addresses of the Island in "New York" was likewise equivocal (a point underscored by the fact that the Island was within the New York postal district, whatever the political geography might otherwise be). This vagueness was important, having a significance that stems from the burden to give notice to the adverse party before a prescriptive claim can begin to run. See supra, at 786-789. Thus, New Jersey suffers nothing unless New Jersey must at least reasonably be supposed to have known that an attempt by New York to deal officially with "Ellis Island" referred to something more than the original, concededly New York territory (on the assumption that it was subject to the authority of any State at all).
Second, it is well to realize how far the presence of the National Government and its particular activities throughout the period necessarily limited the range of prescriptive acts New York might possibly have performed and the information any acts performed might convey to New Jersey about New York's intentions. Although New Jersey has not argued that the occupation of the filled land exclusively by the United States throughout the prescriptive period precluded any requisite occupation by New York as a matter of law (and we express no opinion on that point, cf. Georgia v. South Carolina, 497 U. S., at 389 (finding prescription where United States Army Corps of Engineers had performed some work on territory in dispute); Arkansas v. Tennessee, 310 U. S., at 571-572 (rejecting argument that prescription is not possible where the United States holds title to land)), much of the standard evidence of sovereign prescription is
791
Page: Index Previous 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007