United States v. Dickinson Same v. Withrow

• Decision Date: 16 June 1947
• Docket Number: Nos. 77 and 78,s. 77 and 78
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. DICKINSON. SAME v. WITHROW
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

331 U.S. 745

67 S.Ct. 1382

91 L.Ed. 1789

UNITED STATES

v DICKINSON.

SAME

v. WITHROW.

Nos. 77 and 78.

Argued Dec. 13, 1946.

Decided June 16, 1947.

Mr. Ralph S. Boyd, of Washington, D.C., for petitioner.

Mr. Ernest K. James, of Charleston, W. Va., for respondents.

Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER delivered the opinion of the Court.

These are two suits brought under the Tucker Act, Judicial Code, § 24(20), 28 U.S.C. § 41(20), 28 U.S.C.A. § 41(20), to recover the value of property claimed to have been taken by the Government. The suits were consolidated for purposes of the trial and though they present minor differentiating factors they may here, as below, be disposed of by a single opinion.

In order to imrpove the navigability of the Kanawha River, West Virginia, Congress authorized construction of the Winfield Dam, South Charleston. Act of August 30, 1935, 49 Stat. 1028, 1035, in connection with H.Doc.No.31, 73d Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 2-4. The water above the dam was to be impounded to create a deeper channel and to raise the river pool level in that area. Notice of the proposed pool elevation was given to abutting landowners on July 1, 1936, and the dam was completed and officially accepted by the United States on August 20, 1937. The river was to be raised by successive stages from 554.65 feet to 566 feet above sea level. That level was not reached until September 22, 1938. As a result of the raising of the river the land belonging to the respondents was permanently flooded. In addition, erosion attributable to the improvement damaged the land which formed the new bank of the pool.

Respondents recovered judgment for the value of an easement taken by the United States to flood permanently land belonging to them. Damages were also awarded for the erosion, based on the cost of protective measures which the landowners might have taken to prevent the loss. In addition, the court found that the United States had also acquired an easement for intermittent flooding of part of the land belonging to the defendants, and allowed judgment for the value of such an easement. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's judgment. 4 Cir., 152 F.2d 865. We granted certiorari, 328 U.S. 828, 66 S.Ct. 1023, 90 L.Ed. 1606, because important questions were raised relevant to the determination of just compensation for the taking of private property by the Government.

First. The principal attack by the United States against the judgments is that both actions were outlawed. The applicable statute of limitations is six years. The complaints were filed on April 1, 1943. The Government argues that the statute began to run on October 21, 1936, when the dam began to impound water. In any event, it maintains that the six years began to run not later than on May 30, 1937, when the dam was fully capable of operation, the water was raised above its former level, and the property of the respondents was patially sub merged for the first time. While on the latter view the time for taking had not run under the statute, Dickinson's claim would be barred because he acquired the land after that date.

The Government could, of course, have taken appropriate proceedings, to condemn as early as it chose, both land and flowage easements. By such proceedings it could have fixed the time when the property was 'taken.' The Government chose not to do so. It left the taking to physical events, thereby putting on the owner the onus of determining the decisive moment in the process of acquisition by the United States when the fact of taking could no longer be in controversy. These suits against the Government are authorized by the Tucker Act either as claims 'founded upon the Constitution of the United States' or as arising upon implied contracts with the Government. (See the discussion of jurisdiction both in the opinion of the Court and in the concurring opinion in United States v. Lynah, 188 U.S. 445, 23 S.Ct. 349, 47 L.Ed. 539, and in Temple v. United States, 248 U.S. 121, 39 S.Ct. 56, 63 L.Ed. 162.) But whether the theory of these suits be that there was a taking under the Fifth Amendment, and that therefore the Tucker Act may be invoked because it is a claim founded upon the Constitution, or that there was an implied promise by the Government to pay for it, is immaterial. In either event, the claim traces back to the prohibition of the Fifth Amendment, 'nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.' The Constitution is 'intended to preserve practical and substantial rights, not to maintain theories.' Davis v. Mills, 194 U.S. 451, 457, 24 S.Ct. 692, 695, 48 L.Ed. 1067. One of the most theory-ridden of legal concepts is a 'cause of action.' This Court has recognized its 'shifting meanings' and the danger of determining rights based upon definitions of 'a cause of action' unrelated to the function which the concept serves in a particular situation. United States v. Memphis Cotton Oil Co., 288 U.S. 62, 67 et seq., 53 S.Ct. 278, 280, 77 L.Ed. 619.

Property is taken in the constitutional sense when inroads are made upon an owner's use of it to an extent that, as between private parties, a servitude has been acquired either by agreement or in course of time. The Fifth Amendment expresses a principle of fairness and not a technical rule of procedure enshrining old or new niceties regarding 'causes of action'—when they are born, whether they proliferate, and when they die. We are not now called upon to decide whether in a situation like this a landowner might be allowed to bring suit as soon as inundation threatens. Assuming that such an action would be sustained, it is not a good enough reason why he must sue then or have, from that moment, the statute of limitations run against him. If suit must be brought, lest he jeopardize his rights, as soon as his land is invaded, other contingencies would be running against him—for instance, the uncertainty of the damage and the risk of res judicata against recovering later for damage as yet uncertain. The source of the entire claim—the overflow due to rises in the level of the river—is not a single event; it is continuous. And as there is nothing in reason, so there is nothing in legal doctrine, to preclude the law from meeting such a process by...