SELDOVIA PUBLIC UTILITIES DIST. v. Cook Inlet Packing Co., 4399

• Decision Date: 13 February 1951
• Docket Number: 4400.,No. 4399,4399
• Citation: 95 F. Supp. 528
• Parties: SELDOVIA PUBLIC UTILITIES DIST. v. COOK INLET PACKING CO. SELDOVIA PUBLIC UTILITIES DIST. v. ALASKA YEAR ROUND CANNERIES CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Alaska

95 F. Supp. 528

SELDOVIA PUBLIC UTILITIES DIST. v. COOK INLET PACKING CO.

SELDOVIA PUBLIC UTILITIES DIST. v. ALASKA YEAR ROUND CANNERIES CO.

Nos. 4399, 4400.

United States District Court D. Alaska, Third Division.

February 13, 1951.

McCutcheon & Nesbett, Anchorage, Alaska, Robert E. McNealy, Fairbanks, Alaska, for plaintiff.

Plummer & Arnell, Anchorage, Alaska, John E. Manders, Anchorage, Alaska, for defendants.

FOLTA, District Judge.

By the foregoing actions, which have been consolidated for trial, plaintiff seeks to recover $213 and $285 from the defendants Cook Inlet Packing Company and Alaska Year Round Canneries for water furnished for the year 1946.

Defendants contend that plaintiff agreed in 1938 to supply them with water at the rate of $75 a year indefinitely, in consideration of the relinquishment of their joint water rights in Brooks Creek, which plaintiff developed as a source of water supply; whereas plaintiff contends that the alleged agreement is void because it was not affirmatively approved by its Board of Directors and for the further reason that plaintiff is not empowered to abdicate or bargain away its rate fixing power and that, therefore, the increase in the rate from $75 a year to $288, for the Cook Inlet Packing Company, and $360 for the Alaska Year Round Canneries Company, by the resolution adopted November 8, 1946, plaintiff's Exhibit No. 1, was within its power.

It appears that plaintiff was organized as a public utility district pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 71, S.L.A.1935, Section 49-2-1 et seq., A.C.L.A.1949, for the purpose of supplying the town of Seldovia, in which defendants' canneries are situated, with water; that it constructed a dam across Brooks Creek, impounded the waters thereof, installed a distribution system and fixed rates, including the rate of $75 for each defendant. At the trial the defendants relied on their exhibits "A" and "B" to prove the alleged agreement. However, an examination of exhibit "A" discloses that it is undated and unsigned by either defendant although signed by Hulburt as President of plaintiff, is wholly lacking in mutuality and amounts to no more than an admission by Hulburt that the defendants have a joint right in the waters of Brooks Creek. Exhibit "B" likewise is undated. It is agreed, however, that both of these documents were prepared in 1938. Moreover, exhibit "B" is a carbon copy and the failure to produce the original was not accounted for. It bears the signature of Hulbert and that of the President of the defendant Alaska Year Round Canneries Company and is substantially identical with exhibit "A". Its only purpose appears to be to clarify that exhibit by an endorsement which...