Twin Falls Co. v. Caldwell, 266 U.S. 85 (1924)

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Twin Falls Salmon River Land & Water Company v. Caldwell

No. 8

Argued March 3, 1924
Decided October 27, 1924
266 U.S. 85

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

Syllabus

1. Where the existence and merits of a controversy brought into an equity cause by a supplementary petition and decided by the district court were adequately revealed by the record taken to the circuit court of appeals, though the supplementary petition itself was omitted, but the court, misled by this omission, reversed the decree upon the ground that the matter, for lack of a pleading, was not before the district court, it was not necessary, when the mistake was called to its attention by a petition for a rehearing accompanied by a transcript embodying the omitted pleading, that it should grant a rehearing before recalling its first decision and deciding the appeal on the merits, the term not having elapsed and a full hearing having been had at the beginning. P. 89.

2. The laws of Idaho concerning irrigation projects under the Act of Congress known as the Carey Act (c. 301, § 4, 28 Stat. 422) provide that assessments for maintenance and operation, where the operating company has not come under the control of the settlers, shall receive the approval of the state Land Board before payment is exacted from the settlers, making it a condition to such approval that the Board be satisfied that the proposed expenditures for which the assessment is made are necessary for the maintenance and operation of the irrigation works and are proper charges against the settlers. Held, that an act of the Board, purporting to approve an assessment tentatively as for maintenance, leaving for future determination the question whether the work in view was indeed for maintenance, or construction work for which settlers could not be assessed, and providing that, in the latter event, the Board would require that amounts collected be credited on settlers’ contracts for water rights or be repaid them in cash by the company, was in effect no approval, and that settlers were entitled to repayments of amounts collected under it by the company. P. 90.

3. As the Idaho law does not vest the state Land Board with power to adjudicate rights to repayment of moneys thus wrongfully collected, their adjudication in the courts is not an encroachment on the province of the Board. P. 92.

4. Concurrent findings of two lower courts that work for which an irrigation assessment was made was construction work, and not for maintenance, held sustained by sufficient evidence. Id.

272 F. 356, affirmed.

Appeal from a decree of the circuit court of appeals affirming a decree of the district court requiring the appellant company above named to repay to settlers on an irrigation project moneys collected from them by assessments to defray the cost of certain work thereon.