Lynah v. United States

• Decision Date: 25 January 1901
• Citation: 106 F. 121
• Parties: LYNAH et al. v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

106 F. 121

LYNAH et al. v. UNITED STATES.

United States Circuit Court, D. South Carolina.

January 25, 1901

Bryan &amp Bryan, for plaintiffs.

Abial Lothrop, U.S. Atty.

SIMONTON Circuit Judge.

This is an action tried in the circuit court in the exercise of a jurisdiction co-ordinate, except as to amount, with that of the court of claims. The plaintiffs claimed compensation for lands on the Savannah river taken by the government in improving the navigation of that river. It was tried, as the statute directs, by the court without a jury. The case came on at the April term, 1900, of the court at Charleston ended on the Monday preceding the third Tuesday in April of the same year. On this last-mentioned day the term for Greenville began. On 7th August, 1900, the Greenville term not having ended, the court filed its findings of fact and conclusions of law, upon which verdict and judgment were entered for the plaintiffs. At the conclusion of the argument, in April counsel on both sides submitted in writing requests to find the facts and conclusions of law. Among the requests of the defendant was one that the court find as a fact that the land in question was between high and low water mark. This came under the consideration of the court, and it was fully under the impression that a finding of fact on that point had been made, as follows:

'(4) A certain parcel of this plantation, measuring about 420 acres, had been reclaimed by drainage, and had been in actual continued use for seventy years and upwards as a rice plantation,-- used solely for this purpose. This rice plantation was dependent for its irrigation upon the waters of the Savannah river, and its ditches, drains, and canals through and by which the waters of the river were flowed in and upon the lands, and were then drained therefrom, were adapted to the natural level of the said Savannah river, and dependent for their proper drainage and cultivation upon the maintenance of the natural flow of the said river in, through and over its natural channel along its natural bed to the waters of the ocean. (5) This portion of the plantation dedicated to the culture of rice was protected from the river by an embankment. Through this embankment trunks of water ways were constructed, with flood gates therein. The outer opening of the trunk was about a foot, or a little less above the mean low-water mark of the river, in which the tide ebbs and flows. When it is desired to flow the lands, the flood gates are opened, and the water comes in. When it is desired to draw off this water and to effect the drainage of the lands, the flood gates are opened at low water, and the water escapes. It is essential that the outlet of the trunks or water ways should always be above the mean low-water mark.'

The defendant, being satisfied that such finding has not been distinctly made, has submitted a motion for a new trial, for the purpose of getting such a finding of fact, or, in the alternative, that the court will amend the findings of facts on this point. It may be well to remark that no finding on this point would have affected the conclusion of law reached by the court. The finding of facts shows that plaintiffs and their ancestors had been in the actual, exclusive, pedis possessio of all this land-- high land and rice land-- down to the embankment of the river at low-water mark, holding under a grant...