Medina Val. Irr. Co. v. Seekatz

• Decision Date: 15 December 1916
• Docket Number: 2588.
• Citation: 237 F. 805
• Parties: MEDINA VALLEY IRR. CO. v. SEEKATZ.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

237 F. 805

MEDINA VALLEY IRR. CO. v. SEEKATZ.

No. 2588.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

December 15, 1916

Rehearing Denied January 9, 1917.

William Aubrey and Duval West, both of San Antonio, Tex. (De Montel &amp Fly, of Hondo, Tex., on the brief), for plaintiff in error.

T. T Vander Hoeven, E. P. Lipscomb, and C. L. Bass, all of San Antonio, Tex., for defendant in error.

Before PARDEE and WALKER, Circuit Judges, and FOSTER, District Judge.

WALKER Circuit Judge.

The plaintiff in error, the Medina Valley Irrigation Company, a corporation, claiming that it was lawfully authorized and empowered to establish, maintain, and operate an irrigation system by impounding the waters of the Medina river through the erection of dams and reservoirs, brought this suit against the defendant in error for the purpose of condemning for its use and as a part of its storage reservoir 573.44 acres of defendant's land in Medina county, Tex. The evidence adduced on the trial without contradiction showed that the land sought to be condemned in this suit consisted of several tracts, which were to be united with a large number of other tracts of land owned by various persons, all of which were required, and when united in one body were by the plaintiff to be applied to the construction and maintenance of an extensive reservoir to impound water to be used for the purposes of irrigation for the benefit of the public, and that the plaintiff was entitled to take said land of the defendant by condemnation for said purposes and needed the same to complete said reservoir.

Over objections duly made by the plaintiff, several witnesses were permitted to testify as to the value of the land in question for reservoir purposes. The witness Dillon was asked by defendant's counsel to estimate the value of the land in controversy, and to state what, in his opinion, the land of the defendant to be submerged by plaintiff's reservoir was worth for agricultural purposes and grazing purposes, and for reservoir purposes. Thereupon the plaintiff objected to the witness embodying in his opinion of said value any value that said land possessed for reservoir purposes, for the reason that said evidence in that regard would be irrelevant immaterial, and incompetent. This objection was overruled, the plaintiff duly excepting, and the witness, in reply to the question, testified that, considering all the uses he knew of that the land could be put to, both for agricultural purposes and for reservoir and grazing purposes, the tillable land to be submerged was worth $155 per acre, and the land that was not tillable $150 per acre. Defendant's counsel asked the witness Carpenter the following question:

'Assuming that below plaintiff's lower or diversion dam there is, approximately, 100,000 acres of land that could be put under irrigation by proper canals and ditches, that plaintiff's reservoir for impounding water contains 6,790 acres, that defendant's land sought in this case to be condemned forms part of said reservoir, that the water supply of said reservoir was sufficient to annually irrigate over 100,000 acres of land, that 58 acres of defendant's land was in actual cultivation, 192 acres was susceptible of cultivation, and the

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