United States v. Ickes, 6061.
| Decision Date | 09 April 1934 |
| Docket Number | No. 6061.,6061. |
| Citation | 70 F.2d 771 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES ex rel. SHOSHONE IRR. DIST. v. ICKES, Secretary of the Interior. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit |
Chester I. Long, of Washington, D. C., and Ernest J. Goppert, of Cody, Wyo., for appellant.
Nathan R. Margold, Charles Fahy, E. E. Roddis, and Sol Rothbard, of Washington, D. C., for appellee.
Before MARTIN, Chief Justice, and ROBB, VAN ORSDEL, HITZ, and GRONER, Associate Justices.
Under authority vested in the Secretary of the Interior, by the Act of Congress of June 17, 1902, 32 Stat. 388, and amendments thereof (see 43 USCA § 371 et seq.), an irrigation system, known as the Shoshone project, was undertaken for construction in Northwestern Wyoming. The project was composed of five divisions, containing approximately 184,878 acres of land. The divisions were designated as Garland, Frannie, Willwood, Heart Mountain, and Oregon Basin. The Garland division, the one here in issue, comprises 45,994 acres.
The construction of the Shoshone project was commenced in 1905; and the greater part of the Garland division was constructed by 1917. The price of acreage water rights accorded to landowners was based upon the proportionate cost of the system. For the construction of the Garland division, public notices were given by the Secretary of the Interior, as provided by law, setting forth the acreage rates. By February 10, 1917, public notices had been given covering 44,000 acres of the Garland division, at rates ranging from $45 to $59 per acre. Subsequent notices were given covering additional acreage.
In 1920 the construction of a power and electric system in connection with the Shoshone project was begun, and operation thereof was commenced early in 1922. In arriving at the amount per acre of the charges for construction, as given in the public notices, the Bureau of Reclamation did not include anything for the construction of the power system. The cost of the construction of the power system was kept as a separate item on the books of the Bureau of Reclamation, and no part thereof was allocated or charged to any division of the Shoshone project, or included in the estimate of the amount to be charged against the land.
Plaintiff company, Shoshone Irrigation District, a corporation organized under the laws of Wyoming, through its representatives, in 1926, entered into a contract with the Reclamation Bureau, providing that the company should take over the care, operation, and maintenance, of the Garland division of the Shoshone project, assuming payment of the unpaid construction indebtedness of the consenting application landowners. In the negotiations leading to the contract, the representatives of the plaintiff company requested the insertion in the contract of a provision which would give plaintiff company a proportionate share in the future profits, derived from the operation of the power plant, in an amount to be ascertained by the Secretary of the Interior, which it was thought would fully cover plaintiff's interest therein. This was embraced in section 31 of the contract, which reads as follows:
This action is for a writ of mandamus to compel the Secretary of the Interior to make a statement annually in...
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