11 Colo. App. 147 | Colo. Ct. App. | 1898
delivered the opinion of the court.
In December, 1895, George Teller began proceedings in the county court to condemn a ditch for the purpose of enlargement under the statute. It was owned as to some part -of it by the appellants, Sievers, and as to other parts of it by other ranchmen who lived along its line from near its source in Bock Creek to the point where it entered the property belonging to the various appellants. A statement of the various properties through which it ran, the size and character
The appellants presented a great many questions by their petition for the writ, and have urged many matters on the-attention of the court in support of the proposition that the county court was without jurisdiction, and that therefore, they rightfully sued it out and might thus prevent further proceeding. The only practical question which we need consider is the jurisdiction of the county court to entertain proceedings in condemnation for the purpose of enlarging a ditch and furnishing a water supply to owners of land either below or along the line of the ditch which has been constructed. We shall not attempt to discuss or consider the various matters urged by the appellants in support of their position, because as we view it the whole thing turns on the
These cases clearly sustain the jurisdiction of the county court in proceedings of this kind, and we are unable to discover that the petition for the writ of certiorari contains anything which compels the application of a different rule, or warrants us to reach a different result. We might cite many others in the two courts on the question, but these are enough to support the judgment.
The judgment was likewise right because at the time the petition was filed there had been no final adjudication which could be thus reviewed. As we look at it, this was conclusively determined in Schwarz v. County Court, 14 Colo. 44. According to that authority the application was prematurely made. It came too soon because at the time it was applied for, it was substantially an attempt to restrain the county court before it had rendered any final judgment. In that case there was an attempt by certiorari to restrain the county court from determining the title of various officers who assumed to have been elected in Garfield county, whose title was questioned by contests initiated by parties who claimed the right to hold office. In that case the court adjudged the petition filed to contest the title insufficient for the lack of sundry averments which were indispensable to a statement of a right of contest. Notwithstanding this fact, and notwithstanding the insufficiency of the contesting petitions, and notwithstanding perhaps the lack of right to amend the petitions to make them sufficient for the purpose, the court still
We regard this as an ample determination of the appeal, and we do not feel called on to discuss the various matters which have been suggested by the appellants, and which under some circumstances might compel us to disagree with the trial court. Whether this be or be not true, we neither inquire nor determine.
The district court did not err in quashing the writ, and its judgment will accordingly be affirmed.
Affirmed.