Weiland v. Pioneer Irr Co
| Decision Date | 05 June 1922 |
| Docket Number | No. 3,3 |
| Citation | 66 L.Ed. 1027,42 S.Ct. 568,259 U.S. 498 |
| Parties | WEILAND, State Engineer of Colorado, et al. v. PIONEER IRR. CO. Re- |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Delph E. Carpenter, of Greeley, Colo., and Victor E. Keyes, Fred Farrar, and Leslie E. Hubbard, all of Denver, Colo., for appellants.
Mr. Edwin H. Park, of Denver, Colo., for appellee.
The appellants, defendants below, are citizens and officers of the state of Colorado, charged with official duties with respect to the distribution of water from streams of that state for irrigating purposes, and other citizens of Colorado, who need not be further noticed.
The appellee, plaintiff below, a corporation organized under Nebraska laws, is the owner of an irrigating canal by which it has diverted water from the North fork of the Republican river, an interstate stream, at a point about 6 miles west of the east line of Colorado. Since 1890 one-third of the water thus obtained has been sold and used on lands in Colorado, and the remaining two-thirds carried by the canal into Nebraska has been used on lands in that state.
This suit was commenced in 1913, in the District Court of the United States for the District of Colorado. The bill of complaint is not printed in full in the record, but the epitome of it shows that, in addition to diversity of citizenship as a basis of jurisdiction, it was averred that the right of appellee, under the Constitution of the United States, to engage in commerce between the states of Colorado and Nebraska, by transporting water from the former into the latter and there selling it for agricultural and domestic purposes, was being seriously impaired by the unconstitutional conduct of the state officials of Colorado in permitting, under color of the laws of that state, the wasteful use of the water by appropriators prior in right, and the use by others subsequent in right, to a valid appropriation by the appellee. There was also a general allegation that rights of appellee secured to it by the Constitution and laws of the United States had been invaded by the action of the appellant officials. A decree permanently enjoining this alleged unconstitutional action by the state officers was prayed for.
In its decree the District Court found that there existed the requisite diversity of citizenship to give the court jurisdiction, and also that the 'suit was brought to obtain redress for the deprivation by defendants [appellants] of rights and privileges secured to the plaintiff [appellee] by the Constitution and laws of the United States,' and that therefore it was a suit arising under the laws of the United States. The court found that the carrying capacity of appellee's ditch at the Nebraska state line was 29 cubic feet of water per second, that since the date of the construction of the ditch in 1890 that amount of water had been put to beneficial use in the irrigation of lands within the state of Nebraska, and that by reason of such continued beneficial use there had become vested in the appellee a property right to the continued use thereof. The Colorado officials, and their successors in office were enjoined 'from interfering with the right of plaintiff [appellee] to said water as herein adjudged and * * * from treating plaintiff in the distribution of water * * * otherwise than it would be treated if said canal were wholly within the state of Colorado and all lands irrigated therefrom were in said state.'
The court declined to consider the question of the wasteful or other use of the water by other appropriators...
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