Dan Neil v. Northern Colorado Irrigation Company
| Decision Date | 20 November 1916 |
| Docket Number | No. 68,68 |
| Citation | 37 S.Ct. 7,242 U.S. 20,61 L.Ed. 123 |
| Parties | DAN O'NEIL, Plff. in Err., v. NORTHERN COLORADO IRRIGATION COMPANY et al |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs.Fred R. Wright, Charles D. Hays, Clyde C. Dawson, and G. K. Hartenstein for plaintiff in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 21-23 intentionally omitted] Messrs. La Fayette, Twitchell, Luther M. Goddard, Paul M. Clark, and Fred Farrar, Attorney General for the state of Colorado, for defendants in error.
This is a complaint brought by the plaintiff in error to quiet his title to alleged water rights on Tarryall creek, a tributary of the South Platte river, and to enjoin the defendant Irrigation Company and the state officials from closing the plaintiff's ditch under an assertion of the Irrigation Company's superior right. The defendants justified under a decree establishing the Irrigation Company's priority and a statute making the decree conclusive after four years. The plaintiff replied and argued that the statutes, if construed to have the alleged effect, took his property without due process of law, contrary to the 14th Amendment. The defendants demurred and the state courts upheld the defense. 56 Colo. 545, 139 Pac. 536.
The case is this: In 1879 the state established water districts, the plaintiff's water rights being in district 23 and the defendant's in district 8, directly below 23, upon the South Platte. Jurisdiction was conferred upon the district courts for the proper county to adjudicate all questions concerning priority of appropriation and other questions of right between 'owners of ditches drawing water for irrigation purposes from the same stream or its tributaries within the same water district.' Laws of 1879, Feb. 19, § 19, p. 99. Rev. Stat. 1908, § 3276. The provisions were enlarged by an Act of February 23, 1881, p. 142, but still seemingly confined to controversies between parties in the same district, until they came to the sections of limitation. By § 34 the act was not to prevent suits within four years, and by § 35 after 'four years from the time of rendering a final decree, in any water district, all parties whose interests are thereby affected shall be deemed and held to have acquiesced in the same . . . and thereafter all persons shall be forever barred from setting up any claim to priority of rights to water for irrigation in such water district adverse or contrary to the effect of such decree.' Laws of 1881, pp. 159, 160. Rev. Stat. 1908, §§ 3313, 3314. Later statutes were enacted in 1887 and 1903, creating divisions, and requiring the irrigation division engineers to tabulate the priorities and rights as established by decree in the different districts of their divisions, and to administer the use of water accordingly. But these statutes are not material. The parties' rights were held to be fixed under the Act of 1881.
On December 10, 1883, the proper court for the defendant company's district made a decree that the company was entitled to a priority of right to the use of water for irrigation purposes of 1184 cubic feet of water per second from the South Platte and its tributaries, dated January 18, 1879, which was prior to the date of the plaintiff's rights. It will be observed that the Act of 1881 was in force when this decree was made. The plaintiff contends that the construction of § 35 of the act, as applying to parties in a different district, this construction having been first announced after the period of limitation had gone by, had the effect of a new statute declaring his rights barred by time already elapsed, and attempted to make conclusive against him a proceeding to which he was not a party and in which he would not have been heard.
So far as the last objection goes the answer is that if it be true that ...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Robinson v. Ariyoshi
...therefore, was clearly the result of "perverse reading of prior law" as inferentially condemned in O'Neil v. Northern Colorado Irrigation Co., 242 U.S. 20, 26, 37 S.Ct. 7, 61 L.Ed. 123 (1916), and in contravention of the principles laid down in Muhlker v. New York & Harlem R.R., 197 U.S. 54......
-
Corporation of the Presiding Bishop v. Hodel
...law which this Court would have to find in order to conclude that Reid deprived plaintiff of property without due process. See O'Neil, supra, 242 U.S. at 26-27; Demorest, supra, 321 U.S. at 42-43, 64 S.Ct. at 388; Roberts, supra, 295 U.S. at 277, 55 S.Ct. at In sum, plaintiff's fifth amendm......
-
Campbell v. Wyoming Development Co.
... ... Wyoming Development Company and another, and by William Puls ... and by the Wallis ... the decision in Laramie Irrigation and Power Company v ... Grant, 44 Wyo. 392, to quiet ... 637; Snyder v ... Colorado Gold Dredging Co., 181 F. 62; Simons v. M & ... P Co ... (Nebr.) 64 N.W ... 343; Platte Water Co. v. Northern Colo. Irr. Co ... (Colo.) 21 P. 711; Wyo. v. Col., 259 ... Frank, 72 Neb. 136, 100 N.W. 286; ... O'Neil v. Irrigation Co., 242 U.S. 20, 37 S.Ct ... 7, 61 L.Ed ... ...
-
Lucas v. Wisconsin Electric Power Company
...the error, does not furnish the basis for a claim that due process of law has been denied. Compare O'Neil v. Northern Colorado Irrigation Co., 242 U.S. 20, 26, 37 S.Ct. 7, 61 L.Ed. 123." American Surety Co. v. Baldwin, 287 U.S. 156, 169, 53 S.Ct. 98, 102, 77 L.Ed. 11 "Only by sifting facts ......
-
Registration, Fairness, and General Jurisdiction
...due process of law even if it took the defendant by surprise, which we have no warrant to assert. o'Neil v. Northern Colorado Irrig. Co., 242 U. S. 20, 26, 61 L. ed. 123, 37 Sup. Ct. Rep. 7. Other state laws have been construed in a similar way; e. g., Bagdon v. Philadelphia and R. Coal and......
-
Rule 89 NOTICE WHEN PRIORITY ANTEDATING AN ADJUDICATION IS SOUGHT.
...irrespective of the 1887 statute. This result was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States in an opinion by Mr. Justice Holmes, 242 U.S. 20, 37 S. Ct. 7, 61 L. Ed. 123 (1916). --------Notes:[1] Nichols v. McIntosh, 19 Colo. 22, 27 (1893). We are not unmindful of the service of pro......