170 Wis. 362 | Wis. | 1920
Lead Opinion
The following opinion was filed November 4, 1919:
The defendants’ contentions necessarily involved in disposing of the appeal are: (1) plaintiff cannot maintain the action; (2) it cannot invoke the invalidity of
1. Drainage districts are created for the purpose of promoting the public health or welfare and for the drainage of land. Sec. 1379 — 11, Stats. 1917. If created for the drainage of land alone they are invalid. In re Theresa D. Dist. 90 Wis. 301, 63 N. W. 288. It is because of the public function they perform in promoting the public ■ health or welfare that they are lawfully given the right of eminent domain. Ibid. When the commissioners are appointed the “drainage district shall be a fully organized drainage district with the right to sue and be sued and with all the rights and powers in the drainage district law to such districts given, together with all the usual powers of a public corporation.” Sec. 1379 — 14, Stats. 1917. In view of these broad powers expressly granted to the district by statute and in view of its duty to drain land for the promotion of the public health and welfare, it follows as a natural consequence that the district can maintain any action to remove any unlawful obstruction to the full discharge of its duty. Chicago, M. & St. P. R. Co. v. Lemonweir River D. Dist. 135 Wis. 228, 230, 115 N. W. 825. If defendants without right increase the burden of drainage or render drainage less effective, the district may lawfully maintain an action to stop them from so doing. Its right to maintain actions is coextensive with its duties and functions. The legislature expressly clothed it with power to enforce all rights essential to fully secure the objects of its creation. The fact that private property owners within the district may benefit by the action is immaterial. That is a mere
2. Since the plaintiff may maintain the action because it is essential to the full discharge of its duties and functions, it follows as a necessary corollary that it may invoke the invalidity of any defense thereto. To hold otherwise were to deprive it of the power to assert its rights and duties, and to leave it helpless as against defenses in form but not in fact.
3. Hay and Hemlock creeks are natural watercourses within one watershed and Cranberry creek is a natural watercourse within another watershed. It is well settled that natural watercourses cannot lawfully be diverted or surface water be collected and discharged upon a lower landowner to his damage in the absence of a prescriptive or statutory right thereto. Pettigrew v. Evansville, 25 Wis. 223; Harvie v. Caledonia, 161 Wis. 314, 154 N. W. 383. Defendants claim a prescriptive right. But it appears that their canal was first dug in 1901 and this action was begun in 1913, so there has not been the continuous twenty years’ user requisite for the gaining of such right. Green Bay & M. C. Co. v. Kaukauna W. P. Co. 90 Wis. 370, 402, 61 N. W. 1121, 63 N. W. 1019; Diana Shooting Club v. Lamoreux, 114 Wis. 44, 56, 89 N. W. 880. Moreover, the canal was materially enlarged in 1910, and for the increased flow caused by such enlargement a new prescriptive right would have to be acquired: Green Bay & M. C. Co. v. Kaukauna W. P. Co., supra; Shaughnessey v. Leary, 162 Mass. 108, 38 N. E. 197.
4. Secs. 1472 to 1478, commonly known as the cranberry law, grant to any person owning land adapted to the culture of cranberries the right to maintain dams on his own land and construct and maintain across and through any lands such drains and ditches as shall be necessary for bringing and flooding or draining and carrying off the water from such cranberry-growing lands, or for the purpose of
5. Ch. 265, Laws 1893, as amended by ch. 80, Laws 1895, grants to defendants’ predecessors in title the right to build and maintain a canal from Hemlock creek to Cranberry creek for the purposes of transportation, irrigation, and drainage, which canal shall be deep enough for boats drawing not to exceed twelve inches of water and to draw not to exceed one half the flow of Hemlock creek for such purpose. They claim that under the act they, are entitled to draw water from Hemlock creek and discharge it into Cranberry creek. We assume but do not decide that the act is a valid one. It appears, however, that the canal actually constructed is only a small portion of the whole distance and that it has never been of sufficient depth to be capable of sustaining navigation for the size boats described from May 1st to October 20th of each year as the law prescribes;' that in fact it has never been used for transportation of
6. As stated by the trial judge in his decision of the case, the precise amount of damages caused in the past and that will be caused in future by reason of the diversion of water from Hemlock and Hay creeks and the discharging of the same into plaintiff’s ditches is hard to estimate in money. He found past damages to be $50 and that future damages would result if defendants were not restrained. They argue that there is no evidence to sustain the finding as to damages; that since the water taken from Hemlock and Hay creeks is mingled with that of water from, Cranberry creek, it is impossible to say that water /from the former creeks causes damage; that owing to floods from Cranberry creek that recurrently cause damage, the additional .water diverted by defendants becomes negligible. There is, however, evidence that the amount of water diverted causes a material
By the Court. — Judgment affirmed.
Rehearing
The appellants moved for a rehearing.
In support of the motion there was a brief by Goggins, Bra-semi & Goggins of Grand Rapids.
In opposition thereto there was a brief by B. M. Vaughan of Grand Rapids.
The following opinion was filed January 13, 1920:
By the Court. — The mandate is modified to read:
Judgment affirmed, but with leave granted the defendants, on the record already made and such further evidence as either party may deem necessary, to apply to the trial court, within sixty days from the filing of the remittitur herein, for an .order opening the judgment for the purpose of determining whether there are ways and means by which the defendants may use the waters complained of without