Ex parte Drainage Commissioners of Leflore County

• Citation: 57 So. 223,100 Miss. 821
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Mississippi
• Decision Date: 29 January 1912
• Parties: EX PARTE DRAINAGE COMMISSIONERS OF LEFLORE COUNTY

57 So. 223

100 Miss. 821

EX PARTE DRAINAGE COMMISSIONERS OF LEFLORE COUNTY

Supreme Court of Mississippi

January 29, 1912

October 1911

APPEAL from the chancery court of Leflore county, HON. M. E. DENTON Chancellor.

From a judgment rendered in proceedings by the drainage commissioners of Leflore county, an appeal is taken.

The facts are sufficiently stated in the opinion of the court.

Reversed.

E. D Stone, for appellants.

This is an appeal by the drainage commissioners of Leflore county Mississippi, and Ellsberry district, and Lake Henry district from an order of the chancery court of Leflore county, Mississippi, requiring compensation to be made by the Ellsberry and Lake Henry drainage districts to Rucker drainage district for work done in Rucker drainage district. Section 1720 of Mississippi Code of 1906 is as follows:

"Compensation for draining other district. After the organization of any drainage district under this chapter, or after the filing of the petition to organize any such drainage district, if any other or different drainage district lying above said proposed drainage district shall be organized and drain their lands into and empty the waters from their ditches into the ditches of the said lower drainage district, from the lands lying above and draining into such district so organized or petitioned for, the commissioners of such lower district shall ask, demand and receive of said upper district just compensation for an outlet for the waters of their said upper district, and in case said commissioners cannot agree upon the amount to be paid by such dominant or upper district to said lower district, then the same shall be submitted by petition to the chancery court in which said proposed districts were organized, and which court shall hear and determine the same as other suits."

The facts pertinent to the question at issue are as follows: Ellsberry drainage district was organized in the fall of 1907; Lake Henry district was organized in the fall of 1909; Rucker drainage district was organized in the fall of 1910. Turkey bayou is a tributary of Quiver river and is the common natural outlet for all of the waters of Lake Henry drainage district and Ellsberry drainage district, a part of Rucker drainage district, and about as much more land in the surrounding country not embraced in a drainage district. Rucker drainage district embraced the mouth or lower part of Turkey bayou, and about five miles of the stream. The main outlet of Ellsberry district enters Turkey bayou at or near the eastern boundary of Rucker drainage district. Just east of this stream and widening out for three or four miles is a lake, averaging about three hundred feet in width; this is called "Lake Henry." East of this there are a number of tributaries and streams and these drain the county embraced in Lake Henry drainage district. Thus we have Rucker drainage district to the west and furtherest down stream. East and northeast of this we have Ellsberry drainage district. Then a large scope of country intervenes and further east and at the head waters of Lake Henry on the eastern side of the water shed is what is called the Lake Henry drainage district.

From the plain and unmistakable language of section 1720 it is plain that compensation is only allowed from one district to another in the case where the district lying above the first district organized, or proposed to be organized, shall drain the lands and empty the waters from its ditches into the ditches of the said lower district. In other words, it is only where the lower district shall have been organized first and the new district is organized further up the stream and gets the benefit of the work already done in the lower district, that compensation is required, or authorized.

Section 1720 quoted above is the only law authorizing compensation and although we may believe the law is incomplete we cannot read into it a meaning entirely different to its plain and unmistakable langauge. Without this section 1720, compensation could not be demanded or allowed, so it being necessary that there be a law before...