219 F. 72 | 8th Cir. | 1914
The appellant Frank C. Magruder is the manager of the Belle Fourche project and the appellant R. F. Walter was the project engineer and is the supervising engineer. They were defendants below, and the plaintiff was the Belle Fourche Valley Water’ Users’ Association, a corporation organized under the laws of South Dakota to represent and act for the holders of water rights in the project, to collect the lawful dues from them, and to guarantee the payment of these dues. The Belle Fourche project is a project for the storage of water and the irrigation of land under the Reclamation Act of June 17, 1902, and the acts amendatory thereof. 32 Stat. p. 388,. c. 1093. This is an appeal from an order refusing to set aside a restraining order and granting an interlocutory injunction' against thé defendants, forbidding them to exact frorn holders of water rights in the project charges alleged to be illegal, and from depriving them of the use of the water, of their rights to the water; and of their rights to their land because they failed to pay such charges.
The appellants assail the order on three grounds — that the association is not a proper party plaintiff, that the court below had no power to grant any relief upon the facts stated in the complaint, and that on the evidence the order was erroneous. Counsel for the appellants argue that the association was not a proper party plaintiff, because it had no interest in the suit, and was not one of a numerous class having a common interest in the subject of the suit, within the meaning of rule 38 in equity (198 Fed.xxix, 115 C. C. A. xxix). But rule 37 in equity (198 Fed. xxviii, 115 C. C. A. xxviii) provides that a party with whom and in whose name a contract has been made for thé benefit of another may sue in his own name without joining that other. On October 25, -1905, the United States made a contract, with this association, for the benefit of those who held or should there
“The execution of the contract between the water users’ association and the Secretary of the Interior may be regarded as the completion of the organization of the water nsers’ association. * * * The execution of this contract formally fixes the relation of the association to the government as the representative of the water users and as a medium of communication between the water users and the government.”
It is to prevent the violation of the law applicable to the construction and execution of the foregoing contract, and the alleged irreparable injury to the shareholders of the plaintiff and to the plaintiff that may result from such violation, that this suit was instituted. The contract was made in the name of the corporation for the benefit of its shareholders, who number about 600, and the association was clearly the proper party plaintiff under rule 37 in equity, and also because, as contractor to collect and as guarantor of the payment of the lawful charges against its shareholders for the cost of the works and the use of the water, and as the holder of the first lien upon the property of these shareholders under Laws S. D. 1909, p. 155, upon their water rights respectively for the repayment of their deferred payments which it should pay, it had a vital interest in preventing the levy or collection of unlawful charges against them, or their deprivation of their water rights or their property because they failed to pay such charges.
Did the amended complaint state facts sufficient to invoke the jurisdiction and power of a court of equity to grant relief? In the discussion of this question the allegations of the complaint must be taken to be true. Material averments of the complaint were that .these were the facts:
The shareholders of the plaintiff had applied for water and had been accepted as water users under the Reclamation Act, the contract of October 25, 1905, and written applications in accordance with its terms. They were either the owners of lands whose title had been vested in them, or homesteaders upon public lands irrigable under the project, and the owners of water rights for use upon such lands.
The defendants were attempting to collect of the shareholders, as a part of .these operation and maintenance charges, about $78,000 as betterments, which were and are in reality a part of the expense of construction, and are included within the $3 per annum per acre for the 10 years, amounting to $30 per acre, to which amount many of the shareholders by their accepted applications limited their liability for the construction of the works. During these years many of the shareholders paid some of the foregoing charges, although they deemed them illegal, because only by such payments could they get water from the project, and they paid each year to get sufficient water to enable them to raise crops. But in the year 1913 many of them had become financially exhausted by repeatedly preparing their land for crops which failed for lack of water, and by their payment to the ‘United Spates of some of the charges which have been described, and yet many oí the charges remained unpaid. Thereupon, after they •'had prepared their lands for the crop of 1913, and after the water ■had been turned onto the lands and the crops were growing, the de- ' fendants threatened and were about to turn the water from the lands of these shareholders unless they paid the operation and’maintenance
It is the function and duty of the officers of the judicial department of the United States, a function and duty which they may not renounce, to exercise their own independent judgments in the determination of the questions -whether or not acts of executive officers are authorized by law, even though such officers have already decided' the questions. Deming v. McClaughry, 113 Fed. 639, 640, 641, 51 C. C. A. 349, 350, 351; Hartman v. Warren, 76 Fed. 157, 162, 22 C. C. A. 30, 36; Webster v. Luther, 163 U. S. 331, 342, 16 Sup. Ct. 963, 41 L. Ed. 179; United States v. Tanner, 147 U. S. 661, 663, 13 Sup. Ct. 436, 37 L. Ed. 321; Merritt v. Cameron, 137 U. S. 542, 11 Sup. Ct. 174, 34 L. Ed. 772; United States v. Graham, 110 U. S. 219, 3 Sup. Ct. 582, 28 L. Ed. 126; Swift Co. v. United States, 105 U. S. 691, 26 L. Ed. 1108. The facts stated.in the amended complaint were ample to invoke the jurisdiction of the court below to-determine the question whether or not the defendants were authorized by law to collect the charges it was alleged they demanded, and whether or not they were authorized by law to destroy the water rights and' homestead rights for the failure of their owners to pay these charges.
In the- consideration of the questions thus far discussed the presumption has necessarily.-been .indulged that the averments of facts in the amended complaint are true. But counsel for the defendants contend that they are not true, and that the evidence before the court below at the time the -injunction was granted established this fact so clearly that the court below ought to have dissolved the restraining order' and to have denied the injunction. The restraining order was made -by .the state court on July 19, 1913. On August 6, 1913, áfter the removal of the case to the.court below, the defendants gave notice of a motion to dismiss the suit and to dissolve the order,
In addition to the averments of the amended complaint, the plaintiff produced the affidavit of its secretary that the defendant Magruder had been violating the restraining order by giving notices to shareholders, dated October 25, 1913, that they would suffer the penalty of 1 cent per acre per month for the unpaid operation and maintenance charge for one year after July 21, 1913, of 2 cents per acre per month for two years of such unpaid charges, 3 cents per acre per month for three years of such unpaid charges, and so on; that in compliance with a request for an itemized statement of the expenditures to be charged against the project the defendants furnished one in December, 1911, or January, 1912, which contained an item of $78,000 for betterments; and that the plaintiff had been furnished with statements of expenses incurred in detached offices not
A careful reading and thoughtful consideration of the amended complaint, of each of the affidavits and exhibits, in the light of these established principles of equity, have convinced that there is no such proof in this case of an abuse of discretion by the court below by its issue of the injunction as would warrant a reversal of its order.
The order from which the appeal was taken must accordingly be affirmed; and it is so ordered.