Brooks v. Dewar
| Decision Date | 26 May 1941 |
| Docket Number | No. 718,718 |
| Citation | 313 U.S. 354,85 L.Ed. 1399,61 S.Ct. 979 |
| Parties | BROOKS v. DEWAR et al |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Robert H. Jackson, Atty. Gen., and Warner W. Gardner, of Washington, D.C., for petitioner.
Mr. Milton B. Badt, of Elko, Nev., for respondents.
The respondents brought suit in a Nevada District Court to enjoin the petitioner from barring, or threatening to bar, them from grazing their investock within Nevada Grazing District No. 1 in default of the payment of certain grazing fees and in default of their holding a license permitting such use of the public lands by them. The bill alleged that the respondents were, and for years had been, in the business of breeding, raising, grazing, and selling livestock within Nevada and within the district; that it was impossible for them to own or lease all the land needed for their business and they owned or leased a small portion of the required land and used vacant unappropriated and unreserved public lands of the United States to satisfy the remainder of their grazing requirements; that their financial and business necessities made it impossible to continue to operate if their ability to graze their livestock on the public range were seriously impaired or interfered with. They averred that, until May 31, 1955, they had been impliedly li- censed by the United States to graze livestock on portions of the public range in Nevada.1 They recited the passage by Congress of an Act of June 28, 1934,2 and alleged that, on April 8, 1935, the Secretary of the Interior, in accordance with the provisions of the Act, established a grazing district known as Nevada Grazing District No. 1, which included portions of the public range upon which the respondents had theretofore grazed their livestock and that, on May 31, 1935, the Director of Grazing, with the approval of the Secretary, had promulgated rules which required all persons grazing within the district to obtain temporary licenses so to do, for which no fees were to be paid; that pursuant to the rules, the respondents obtained temporary licenses; that, on March 2, 1936. After an investigation by the Secretary, the Director of Grazing, with the approval of his superior, purporting to act under the authority of § 2 of the Act of June 28, 1934, promulgated rules for the administration of grazing districts, which provided for the issue of temporary licenses to expire on a date named in 1937 or upon the issue of permits provided for by § 3 of the Act, for which licenses graziers were to pay a fee of five cents per month for each head of cattle and a fee of one cent per month for each head of sheep for the privilege of grazing; that the rules further provided that, after issue of the temporary licenses, no stockman should graze livestock upon, nor drive them across, the public range within a grazing district without a license. The complaint recited that, about May 1, 1936, the respondents were notified by the Register of the District Land Office that licenses would be granted them upon payment of the first installment of the grazing fees and that shortly thereafter the defendant, Brooks, who was acting as Regional Grazier of the United States, notified the respondents that unless they paid the installments and obtained licenses by June 15th they would be considered in trespass under the terms of the Act of 1934 and would be punished by fine as provided in the Act. The respondents alleged with particularity the urgent necessity in the conduct of their business that they be permitted in graze their cattle to public lands and that, unless they can do so, they will suffer irreparable and serious damage due to the destruction of their bus nesses. The bill charges that although the Secretary in promulgating the rules with respect to temporary licenses purported to act under the authority of § 2 of the Act of 1934, that section confers upon him no power so to do and that grazing fees specified by the rules were fixed without any attempt to determine their amounts as required by § 3 of the Act and in violation of conditions prescribed by § 3.
The petitioner demurred and assigned as reasons that the complaint failed to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action against him; that there was a defect of parties defendant for failure to join the Secretary of the Interior; that as the United States, an indispensable party, had not consented to be sued, the court was without jurisdiction; and that the subject matter of the complaint was exclusively within the political power of the United States and not subject to judicial review. The court overruled the demurrer, with leave to answer. The petitioner elected to stand upon his demurrer and the court thereupon entered a decree in favor of the respondents, which the Supreme Court of Nevada affirmed.3 We granted certiorari, 312 U.S. 674, 61 S.Ct. 738, 85 L.Ed. —-, because of the importance of the questions involved.
By § 1 of the Act of 1934, the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to establish grazing districts not exceeding in the aggregate an area of 80,000,000 acres out of certain unappropriated and unreserved public lands of the United States4 if the lands, in his opinion, are chiefly valuable for grazing and raising forage crops. Before any district is created a hearing is to be held after notice at which officials and persons interested are to be heard. Section 2 provides:
'The Secretary of the Interior shall make provision for the protection, administration, regulation, and improvement of such grazing districts as may be created under the authority of the foregoing section, and he shall make such rules and regulations and establish such service, enter into such cooperative agreements, and do any and all things necessary to accomplish the purposes of this Act (chapter) and to insure the objects of such grazing districts, namely, to regulate their occupancy and use, to preserve the land and its resources from destruction or unnecessary injury, to provide for the orderly use, improvement, and development of the range; * * * and any willful violation of the provisions of this Act (chapter) or of such rules and regulations thereunder after actual notice thereof shall be punishable by a fine of not more than $500.'
Section 3 authorizes the Secretary to issue permits to graze livestock in grazing districts 'upon the payment annually of reasonable fees in each case to be fixed or determined from time to time.' It commands that preference be given, in the issue of permits, to certain persons described in the section and that no permittee who complies with the rules and regulations of the Secretary shall be denied the renewal of his permit if such denial will impair the value of the permittee's grazing unit when such unit is pledged as security for any bona fide loan. The permits are to be for a period of not more than ten years subject to the preferential right of the permittee to renewal in the discretion of the Secretary. There are other provisions for adjustment of the amount of grazing to be permitted under the permits and a corresponding adjustment of the grazing fees in the case of the occurrence of range depletion due to natural causes.
By § 10 it is provided that all moneys received under the authority of he Act are to be deposited in the Treasury of the United States and twenty-five per cent. of such moneys received from any district in a fiscal year is made available, when appropriated by the Congress, for expenditure by the Secretary for range improvements and fifty per cent. of such money received from a district in any fiscal year is to be...
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