Lenz v. Coon Creek Watershed Dist., 40441

• Decision Date: 01 September 1967
• Docket Number: No. 40441,40441
• Citation: 278 Minn. 1,153 N.W.2d 209
• Parties: John O. LENZ et al., Appellants, v. COON CREEK WATERSHED DISTRICT and Board of Managers thereof, Respondents.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 209

153 N.W.2d 209

278 Minn. 1

John O. LENZ et al., Appellants, v. COON CREEK WATERSHED DISTRICT and Board of Managers thereof Respondents.

No. 40441.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Sept. 1, 1967.

Syllabus by the Court

1. The propriety of a refusal by a district court to allow an appellant to present additional evidence before it, in an appeal from an order of the Water Resources Board, is governed by Minn.St.1961, § 112.792, and its ruling will not be reversed where there is a reasonable basis for it.

2. A petition to a watershed district for an improvement, signed by a proper county board, need not, under Minn.St. 112.48, subd. 1, also be signed by any resident freeholders.

3. That a member of a county board petitioning for an improvement pursuant to § 112.48, subd. 1, and members of the board of managers of the watershed district approving the project owned land that will be benefited by the project, does not in itself render either the petition or the approving order a nullity.

4. Where a petition made by a county board pursuant to § 112.48 requests that a comprehensive improvement to an existing county drainage system be undertaken by a watershed district and does not ask for the district to take over the system, the requirements of Minn.St. 112.65, subd. 1, are not applicable, and the provisions of § 112.65, subd. 2, are controlling.

5. Minn.Const. art. 9, § 1, does not prohibit a watershed district from making assessments for a project on a noncashvaluation basis, for watershed districts are municipal corporations.

6. Joint appeals to a district court from decisions by either the managers of a watershed district or the Water Resources Board as to matters that had no question of fact or of law common to all the appellants were not authorized at the times of these appeals.

Kelley & Torrison and Richard A. Emerick, St. Paul, for appellants.

Weaver, Talle & Herrick, Anoka, Erickson, Popham, Haik & Schnobrich, Minneapolis, for respondents.

OPINION

ROGOSHESKE, Justice.

Appeal from a judgment. On June 4, 1962, the Board of County Commissioners of Anoka County petitioned the Coon Creek Watershed District to improve 27.1 miles of the county Coon Creek drainage channel by increasing its capacity to alleviate periodic flooding, and thereby reduce damage to roads and bridges, and by providing an improved outlet for existing county ditches, for discharge from a game refuge, for drainage of agricultural land, and for storm sewer systems (principally from the municipalities of Blaine and Coon Creek). ¹ This proposed project was opposed by numerous affected landowners, including those who are appellants in this action.

As required by the Minnesota Watershed Act, Minn.St. 112.34 et seq., which we held constitutional in Adelman v. Onischuk, 271 Minn. 216, 135 N.W.2d 670, the Board of Managers of the Coon Creek Watershed District (hereinafter called Managers) held public hearings on the desirability of ordering the proposed project on February 29, March 7, 9, and 26, and April 4, 1964. Evidence was received both from the proponents and the opponents of the proposed project, including the engineer's plan and report and the report of the appraisers. ² On June 4, 1964, the Managers entered an order establishing the project and approved, as modified, the assessment of benefits and allowance of damages found by the appraisers.

Simultaneous appeals from this order were made to the Water Resources Board (hereinafter called Board) and the district court. These appeals named John O. Lenz and Robert J. Nehring as appellants in the caption and over 1,000 other persons as appellants in an attached appendix. These persons were individual owners of parcels of land affected by the project.

The issues raised in the appeal to the district court fell into three general categories (1) Those questioning the constitutionality of the Watershed Act pursuant to which the watershed district had been established; ³ (2) those relating to the validity of the Managers' order; and (3) those relating to the propriety of the respective amounts assessed as benefits and allowed as damages for each of the parcels of land owned by the individual appellants.

On September 14, 1964, pursuant to a motion by the Managers, the district court struck from the notice of appeal most of those grounds raising issues falling into category (2) because appellants had failed to follow the provisions of Minn.St.1961, § 112.80, subd. 8, of the act, which requires an appellant to exhaust the administrative remedy of a review by the Board before an appeal can be taken to the court. It reserved action primarily with respect to the constitutional issues and questions of benefits and damages to the individual landowners. So far as we can ascertain, appellants did not then, nor do they now, question the propriety of this action. Instead, they pursued their appeal to the Board. After hearings at which the Board, with appellants' approval, considered a written summary of some of the evidence presented to the Managers by appellants, the exhibits submitted to the Managers, and additional oral evidence submitted by appellants, the Board on March 29, 1965, affirmed the Managers' order. Appellants appealed to the district court from the Board's decision, ⁴ alleging as grounds therefor those relating to the validity of the Managers' order which had previously been stricken from their notice of appeal to that court from that order, and also alleging that the Board's findings of fact were not supported by the evidence, that the appraisers' method of appraisal was unconstitutional, and that the Board unduly restricted the appellants in their submission of evidence. In addition, appellants requested the court to 'take additional testimony on all issues of fact.'

The two appeals by appellants to the district court from the respective orders of the Managers and Board were consolidated. On May 19, 1965, all the documentary evidence submitted to the Board was certified and forwarded to the district court along with a transcript of the oral evidence received by the Board. On June 9, 1965, the Managers moved the court 'upon all of the pleadings, files and records herein' to have the appeal from the Managers' order dismissed in its entirety and to have the court deny appellants' request 'that the Court take additional testimony and ordering counsel for the parties to file final briefs pursuant to the Court's review by certiorari of the order of the Minnesota Water Resources Board.' Appellants countered with a motion asking the court to vacate the order of the Managers and that of the Board and to grant judgment to appellants, or in the alternative to remand the case to the Managers for further action. These motions were argued orally off the record and submitted on written briefs.

On January 19, 1966, the district court rendered a decision on the merits, issuing findings of fact, conclusions of law, and order for judgment which in effect affirmed the decisions of the Managers and the Board and ordered both the appeals dismissed with the exception that appellants Nehring and Lenz were allowed to have the amount of their individual assessments and damages decided by a jury. The court, in making this decision, had before it and considered all the evidence considered by the Board, although these files and records had not been formally offered and were not received into evidence by the court either at the hearing on the motions or at any formal call of the case for trial. Appellants made a motion for amended findings or 'in the alternative for a trial (new trial),' in which they claimed the right to present additional evidence 'on all issues of fact' raised in their appeals. This motion was denied on May 16, 1966. A memorandum accompanying the order of the district court expressly determined that a 'trial de novo in the District Court' was not required since the review was by certiorari, the evidence presented to the Board was 'sufficient to warrant and require the findings and order made herein,' and at the respective hearings before the Managers and the Board, '(a) ll parties in interest * * * were given an opportunity to be heard.' In this manner the court reaffirmed its prior refusal to take additional testimony 'on all issues of fact raised by the notices of appeal,' as again urged by appellants in general terms without specifying any specific fact issue or issues. Judgment was entered on May 19, 1966.

This appeal from the judgment is based upon some, but not all, of the grounds urged before the district court. In particular, while appellants repeatedly assert they should be given an opportunity to present further evidence to the court, in their assignment of errors they do not claim that there was insufficient evidence to support the Board's findings that total benefits accruing from the project would exceed its total costs. Nor do they raise any constitutional issues except that 'the assessments were made without regard to cash valuation' contrary to Minn.Const. art. 9. Their assignment of errors primarily concerns the question of the jurisdiction of the Managers to establish the project, the claimed disqualifying personal interest of certain officials, and what might be generally described as procedural problems.

1. Appellants' entire presentation of this appeal is colored by their insistence that the district court erred in denying them the right to have a trial de novo 'on all issues of fact' raised by their appeal, principally as to the specific issue of whether the total benefits exceeded the project's total cost. We need consider this alleged right only with reference to this specific issue, as it is the only issue of fact specified by appellants remaining after the numerous preliminary legal issues, also presented on appeal to this court, have been decided. Admittedly, § 112.80 of the Watershed Act, governing appeals from the order of the Managers,...