Thetford v. United States, 9816.
| Decision Date | 04 December 1968 |
| Docket Number | No. 9816.,9816. |
| Citation | 404 F.2d 301 |
| Parties | Carl THETFORD, Mamie Thetford, Charles Phelps, Irene Phelps and Sooner State Securities, Inc., Appellants, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
Thomas G. Smith, Purcell, Okl. (George Bingaman, Purcell, Okl., on the brief), for appellants.
George R. Hyde, Atty., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C. (Clyde O. Martz, Asst. Atty. Gen., Washington, D.C., Bruce Green, U. S. Atty., Max E. Findley, Sp. Asst. U. S. Atty., Muskogee, Okl., and Roger P. Marquis, Atty., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., on the brief), for appellee.
Before MURRAH, Chief Judge, and BREITENSTEIN and HILL, Circuit Judges.
The appeal is by landowners from an order overruling their objections to the taking of their lands by the Government and from the judgment determining ownership and just compensation in a land condemnation suit.
After the condemnation suit was filed the landowners attacked the right of the United States to take the particular land based upon the same argument urged here. The trial judge rejected the argument and held the taking to be within the authority of the Secretary of the Interior.
A recitation of a part of the history of the project involved is necessary to resolve appellants' first point. By the Act of August 24, 1962, 76 Stat. 395, the Congress authorized the Secretary of the Interior "to construct, operate and maintain the Arbuckle Federal reclamation project" in Oklahoma, the same to be done Section 6 of the Act, in pertinent part, further expressly provides: "The Federal costs of constructing the facilities authorized by this section shall be limited to the nonreimbursable cost of the Arbuckle project for minimum basic recreational facilities as determined by the Secretary."
Historically this type of legislation is initiated by a letter report from the Bureau of Reclamation of the Interior Department to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Act under consideration here was so initiated and the report was designated House Document No. 242, 87th Congress, 1st Session (1961). The evidence in the record, without dispute, shows that such a report is merely a feasibility report and at most is only a tentative plan for the project being initiated. The report did contain an estimate of the recommended acreage for recreational use over and above the acreage necessary for the construction and maintenance of the dam and reservoir. Attached to the report were maps showing the area proposed to be taken. Appellants' land was not within that area.
Appellants first attack the validity of the taking of their lands. To support this point they argue that the Act contained limitations upon the taking of land for the project in that there was a defined take line, there was an actual limitation of acreage, and the minimum basic recreational facilities were defined. The fallacy in this argument results from their use of the feasibility report to read into the Act restrictions that do not exist. All such projects must in some way be initiated for consideration by the Congress and it is apropriate for the Secretary of the Interior to take this first step after determining, by a preliminary examination of the proposed project, that the project is feasible and what the probable costs will be. In this determination, and in preparing the report, the Secretary must in a broad way define the project in terms of acreage and probable facilities. Nevertheless, the report is not a part of the Act and we believe it is inappropriate to use the report, or any other part of the legislative history, to arrive at an interpretation of the meaning of the Act. Such practice becomes necessary only if the act in question is ambiguous.1 The Act here is clear and unambiguous thus we find no reason to look behind the plain language of it. The Act did not...
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Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. v. Alexander, EC 77-53
...further studies, United States v. 2606.84 Acres of Land in Tarrant County, Texas, 432 F.2d 1286, 1292 (5 Cir. 1970); Thetford v. United States, 404 F.2d 301 (10 Cir. 1968), no court has, from our research, undertaken to define the precise limits of the Corps officials' authority to make "su......
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United States v. 2,606.84 Acres of Land in Tarrant Co., Tex.
...Document was only a preliminary feasibility report and was not binding on the Corps or the Secretary of the Army. Thetford v. United States, 10 Cir. 1968, 404 F.2d 301. In fact the evidence shows that it was only after passage of H.D. 403 that the Corps was empowered to make some of the mos......
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