Big Bend Drainage Dist., In re, 3510
| Decision Date | 15 September 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 3510,3510 |
| Citation | 418 P.2d 784 |
| Parties | In the Matter of Big bend DRAINAGE DISTRICT. FREMONT SHEEP COMPANY, Robert Rein, and Beatrice Y. Rein, Appellants(Remonstrants below), v. BIG BEND DRAINAGE DISTRICT, Appellee (Petitioner below). |
| Court | Wyoming Supreme Court |
F. M. Andrews Jr., Riverton, for appellants.
Donald Spiker, of Spiker & White, Riverton, for appellee.
Before PARKER, C. J., and HARNSBERGER, GRAY, and McINTYRE, JJ.
The Big Bend Drainage District, ostensibly under the provisions of § 41-446, W.S.1957, filed a petition, which as amended, alleged its organization; establishment of its boundaries, contracts by it with the United States concerning the Government's paying its proper propertionate share of constructing, maintaining, and operating the drainage system for certain Indian lands, which, although within the area to be drained, were held in trust status and because of Federal law were not susceptible of inclusion within the district-even though neither the Indian lands nor the district lands could be separately drained without greatly benefiting the other and each could be most successfully and economically reclaimed and protected by the construction of an integral system of drainage works; the subsequent patenting and later transfer of ownership of portions of said Indian lands to the Fremont Sheep Company and the Reins; and that the lands are now receiving the benefits of the drains of the district by direct or indirect, natural or artificial connection therewith; and prayed that the boundaries of the district as previously established be enlarged to include certain outside lands, including those of the mentioned parties, appellants herein; that such lands be subjected to annual assessments for operation and maintenance; and for such purpose that the assessed benefits of the lands be fixed at the amount of $108.2735 per acre for assessment for operation and maintenance of the district (this amount having been previously established by the terms of the agreement with the United States Government). The appellants remonstrated against the petition, and in answers to the amended petition denied any benefits to their lands, alleged that the petition failed to state a claim upon which relief might be granted, that allegations of the petition failed to report facts showing that appellants' lands were receiving benefits of the district, and that the court was without jurisdiction over the subject matter of the assessment value of appellants' lands; the Fremont Sheep Company also counterclaimed for some $5,000 because of damage occasioned when the purported drains crossing its lands became silted, clogged, and choked with weeds. The district filed an answer to the counterclaim, asserting failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted and also, in effect, denying generally. Subsequently, after varous other peripheral filings, the district moved for summary judgment with supporting affidavits of a geologist and engineer directed to a delineation of the geological structure and the drainage problems as related to the mentioned lands, together with the affidavit of its attorney as to finances and assessments relating to the lands claimed to be benefited. In opposition to the motion for summary judgment were affidavits of a geologist and the president of the Fremont Sheep Company, both indicating that inadequate maintenance of the drain was having a detrimental effect on appellants' lands. Subsequent to the motion for summary judgment, the Fremont Sheep Company added a second cause of action to its counterclaim, alleging the district claimed an adverse interest in its lands and praying that title be quieted against the district or in the alternative that it have judgment for damage in the amount of $7,000. The district denied generally and moved to dismiss the company's counterclaim and to strike a demand for jury trial, which had been sought on the issue of negligence and damage. The court granted the motions to dismiss the counterclaim and to strike the demand for jury, and by means of summary judgment decreed said lands to be assessable for operation and maintenance beginning in the years said lands were patented by the United States. Remonstrants appealed from the summary judgment and the orders dismissing the counterclaim and granting the montion to strike the demand for jury trial.
Appellants here argue that only one procedure is available for the involuntary inclusion of lands within the assessment rolls of an existing drainage district, that is, § 41-446:
'Whenever any drained lands outside a drainage district are receiving the benefits of the drains of said district, by direct or indirect, natural or artificial connection therewith, the commissioners of said district may report said facts to the court and ask that said lands, describing them be brought into said district and assessed for the benefits by them received from the drains ditches or levees of said district.'
together with subseqent sections which prescribe added steps. The gist of their argument on appeal seems to be that if the lands in question had already been included as part of the district the proper action would have been a suit to enforce the existing statutes, but instead the district acted under § 41-446, and having done so, it was obligated to show the benefits to the lands sought to be included but failed to meet this obligation. In that connection, appellants insist that, 'The burden of proving that lands sought to be annexed to a district will be benefited by annexation is upon the district,' citing 19 C.J. Drains § 27 (28 C.J.S. Drains § 8c(5)). Appellee responds to this basic argument by saying that the determination of benefits of the district's drain to the appellants' lands, as well as the apportionment of those benefits, was a legislative determination by the commissioners in the exercise of plenary powers granted them in the drainage district statutes, carrying every presumption of regularity and validity and challengeable only for exceeding their powers or for the exercise of discretion in a fraudulent, arbitrary, or capricious manner, and that appellants failed to so challenge the determination.
Although the findings of the trial court embraced certain other matters and among other things alluded to a joint enterprise between the United...
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State Highway Commission v. Bourne
...and Procedure, § 350, pp. 321-323 (1960). Attention is also called to what was recently said in our own case of In re Big Bend Drainage District, Wyo., 418 P.2d 784, 789: '* * * (I)nasmuch as the counterclaim was dismissed for failure to state a claim on which relief could be granted, leave......