The State ex inf. McAllister v. Norborne Land Drainage District Company of Carroll County
| Decision Date | 10 October 1921 |
| Citation | 234 S.W. 344,290 Mo. 91 |
| Parties | THE STATE ex inf. McALLISTER, Attorney-General, ex rel. CHARLES D. COLE et al., v. NORBORNE LAND DRAINAGE DISTRICT COMPANY OF CARROLL COUNTY |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Writ quashed.
Paul D Kitt and Perry S. Rader for informants.
(1) Quo warranto is a direct proceeding by the State and is available for nullifying the exercise of legislative power by a municipality, or by the legislative agent, in this case the circuit court. Sec. 2066, R. S. 1919; Sec. 2631, R. S. 1909; State ex inf. Killam v. Colbert, 273 Mo. 198, 209; Black v. Early, 208 Mo. 308; State ex rel. v Wilson, 216 Mo. 275; State ex rel. v. Gravel Road Co., 187 Mo. 446; State ex rel. Brown v Westport, 108 Mo. 582; State ex rel. v Westport, 116 Mo. 582; Lehigh P. & T. Co. v. Town of Lehigh, 156 Iowa 387, 398. (2) To nullify the attempted extension of its corporate limits, the suit should be brought directly against the corporation. 23 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law, p 622, b; City of East Dallas v. State ex rel. Putz, 73 Tex. 370; People v. Peoria, 166 Ill. 517; State ex rel. White v. Small, 131 Mo.App. 470; State ex inf. v. Fleming, 148 Mo. 9, 12; State ex inf. v. Fleming 158 Mo. 567; State ex inf. Major v. Kansas City, 233 Mo. 171; State ex inf. v. Woods, 233 Mo. 382. (3) It has been ruled by this court that the extension, by the judgment or decree of a circuit court, of the boundary lines of a drainage district organized under the Act of 1913, is an exercise of legislative power by an administrative agent. State ex rel. Manion v. Dawson, 225 S.W. 97. (4) The judgment of the circuit court of August 12, 1918, extending the boundary lines of respondent drainage district so as to add relators' lands and other lands, being an exercise of legislative power by an administrative agent, was not res adjudicata. State ex inf. v. Fleming, 147 Mo. 2, 11; State ex rel. White v. Small, 131 Mo App. 470; State ex inf. v. Calbert, 273 Mo. 198; State ex rel. v. Wilson, 216 Mo. 215, 275; Kayser v. Trustees of Bremen, 16 Mo. 88; Woods v. Henry, 55 Mo. 560; State ex rel. v. McReynolds, 61 Mo. 203; State ex inf. v. Woods, 233 Mo. 357. (5) The Circuit Court of Carroll County, in rendering its decree extending the boundary lines of the drainage district, was not a court possessed of general common-law jurisdiction, but was an inferior court or tribunal, possessed of no power except what was expressly conferred upon it by statute, and all facts conferring upon it power to extend the boundaries must affirmatively appear upon the face of the proceedings. Zeibold v. Foster, 118 Mo. 349; Ry. Co. v. Campbell, 62 Mo. 585; State v. Metzger, 26 Mo. 65; Edmonston v. Kite, 43 Mo. 176; Schell v. Leland, 45 Mo. 289; Iba v. H. & St. J. Railroad, 45 Mo. 469; Haggard v. Att. & Pac. Railroad, 63 Mo. 302; Fisher v. Davis, 27 Mo.App. 321; State ex rel. v. St. Louis, 1 Mo.App. 503; Michael v. St. Louis, 112 Mo. 610; Cunningham v. Pac. Railroad, 61 Mo. 33; Jefferson Co. v. Cowan, 54 Mo. 234; Woods v. Boots, 60 Mo. 546. All jurisdictional facts must affirmatively appear upon the face of the proceedings and no presumptions are indulged as to matters not so appearing. State ex rel. v. Wilson, 216 Mo. 277; State ex inf. v. Woods, 233 Mo. 377; State ex rel. v. Page, 107 Mo.App. 213; State ex rel. v. Seibert, 97 Mo.App. 218. Furthermore, "No court or officer can acquire jurisdiction by the mere assertion of it, or by falsely alleging the existence of facts on which jurisdiction depends." Ex parte O'Brien, 127 Mo. 489; People v. Cassels, 5 Hill (N.Y.) 164. While the Legislature itself might organize a drainage district composed of the whole state, as a police regulation for the promotion of the public health, etc., it cannot delegate to an administrative agent, such as a circuit court, such unrestricted power; it cannot delegate to such agent the vital power to capriciously say, as its opinion serves, to what places and in what territory the statute shall apply, but such agent has no power except such as is expressly and specifically given. Merchants Exchange v. Knott, 212 Mo. 616. (6) The statutes do not contemplate that a drainage district organized in 1899 and reorganized under the Act of 1913 in 1917 shall have power, after its reorganization, to extend its boundary lines to include other large tracts. They contemplate that it shall, after its reincorporation, be confined to the same territory embraced within its boundary lines at the time of its organization in 1899, and that for the construction of new drainage works or the enlargement of those then constructed it shall amend its plan for reclamation then adopted and levy taxes on the lands contained in the district then organized. Secs. 53 to 60, Laws 1913, pp. 263-266; Secs. 47 and 40, Laws 1913, p. 260; Secs. 16 and 37, Laws 1913, pp. 241, 254. (7) If said Section 40 authorizes the extension of the boundary lines of an existing drainage district so as to include other large tracts, and the conditions prescribed by Section 2 must be read into Section 40, then the petition filed by the board of supervisors to extend the boundaries will not authorize the circuit court to entertain it unless it shows on its face (1st) that the lands to be added, together with those already contained in the district, constitute one contiguous body, or drainage unit, of swamp, wet or overflowed lands, or lands subject to overflow, and (2nd) that the purpose of extending the boundaries is to reclaim the lands to be added from the effects of water either (a) for agricultural or sanitary purposes and (b) to promote the public health, convenience or welfare, or (c) to conserve some other public utility or benefit, and (3rd) that the owners of a majority of the acres to be added have consented to the extension, either by joining in the petition or by filing their separate written consent. State ex inf. v. Woods, 233 Mo. 357; 32 Cyc. 1424. (a) All jurisdictional facts must affirmatively appear upon the face of the proceedings and no presumptions are indulged as to matters not so appearing. State ex rel. v. Wilson, 216 Mo. 277; State ex inf. v. Woods, 233 Mo. 377; State ex rel. v. Page, 107 Mo.App. 213; State ex rel. v. Seibert, 97 Mo.App. 213; Ry. Co. v. Campbell, 62 Mo. 588; Ellis Pac. Ry. Co., 51 Mo. 203; Ry. Co. v. Young, 96 Mo. 39; Leslie v. St. Louis, 47 Mo. 474; Nishnabotna Drain. Dist. v. Campbell, 154 Mo. 157. (b) The supervisors' petition to extend did not show upon its face the affirmative facts necessary to authorize the circuit court to entertain it. It did not show either (a) that the lands to be added were a part of the contiguous body, or drainage unit, of which the lands in the organized district was the other part, or (b) that the purpose of the extension was to promote some public purpose or (c) that the owners of a majority of the acres to be added, or the owners of any of them, had consented to the extensions. (c) The record clearly establishes that the owners of a majority of the acres to be added had not consented to the extensions. (d) By no fair construction can the words "contiguous body" used in Section 2 of the Act of 1913 be expanded to include relators' lands, or the two large tracts in Carroll County, each eight to ten miles in length and connected by the long narrow neck four or five miles long and only a few hundred yards wide. The annexation of those two tracts to the district affects relators' property interests, for their lands added must be taxed to pay for the construction of the drainage works for those two widely separated tracts. Ingersoll on Public Corporations, pp. 151 et seq.; Traux v. Pool, 46 Iowa 256; Elsberry Drain. Dist. v. Harris, 267 Mo. 153. (e) The word "adjacent" used in Section 9 of the Act of 1913, and in the notice prescribed by Section 40, means adjoining, next to, close to, in proximity to the boundary lines. It means the lands which the engineer's survey reveals should have been included in and described by the articles of association, but were omitted therefrom in a mistaken apprehension of just what lands constituted the "contiguous body" which Section 2 prescribes may be organized into a drainage district. It is only those lands that can be added by the extension of the boundary lines. The words "adjacent to" used in the notice prescribed by Section 40 refer back to and mean the same thing as the words "adjacent thereto" used in Section 9, and it is only the lands "adjacent to" the boundaries described in the articles of association that can be added by the extension of the boundaries. Relators' lands, three miles square, were not "adjacent to" the lands of the reorganized district. (8) In no event can the boundary lines of a drainage district be extended to include other great tracts, against the consent of the owners of the lands to be added, unless (a) the extension is necessary for the proper reclamation and efficient drainage of the lands contained in the district, and (b) the lands contained within the extensions will be benefited by the construction of the drainage works contemplated by the adopted plan for reclamation. Elsberry Drainage Dist. v. Harris, 267 Mo. 139; Myles Salt Co. v. Iberia Drain. Dist., 239 U.S. 485. (9) If Sec. 40 of the Act of 1913 is not a mere correction statute, and authorizes the circuit court, upon the petition of the supervisors alone, to extend the boundaries of an organized drainage district so as to include other large tracts of land, without the consent of the owners or any of them, then said Section 40 denies to the owners of the lands so added the immunities and privileges and the equal protection of the laws guaranteed to them by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, in that it divides a natural class, the owners of land in the same ...
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