Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/165/188/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 14:07:55+00:00

Document:
On error to a state court in a chancery case (as also in a case at law), when the facts are found by the court below, this Court is concluded by such findings.
On error to a state court, the opinion of that court is to be treated as part of the record, and it may be examined in order to ascertain the questions presented, as may also be the entire record, if necessary to throw light on the findings.
The finding by the trial court, sustained by the supreme court of the state, that the stream across which the dam complained of was erected was a nonnavigable stream was a finding of fact which is conclusive here, and affords ground broad enough on which to maintain the judgment below independent of any federal question, and this Court is consequently without jurisdiction.
value of certain real property to the plaintiff belonging, situated in the vicinage of the proposed work, that it was a purely private undertaking, which the board of state engineers was not authorized to do at public expense, and that the dike, if carried out, would obstruct the navigation of Bayou Pierre and would therefore violate the laws of the United States. The State of Louisiana, by intervention, and the defendants, by answers, traversed the averments of the petitions. There was judgment in the trial court rejecting the plaintiffs' demand, which was, on appeal, affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana. 45 La.Ann. 1358. To the decree of affirmance this writ of error is prosecuted.
The record before us contains all the testimony introduced and evidence offered in the trial court, all of which was open for consideration and passed upon by the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana. On error, however, to a state court, this Court cannot reexamine the evidence, and, when the facts are found below, is concluded by such finding. Dower v. Richards, 151 U. S. 658; Bartlett v. Lockwood, 160 U. S. 386; Stanley v. Schwalby, 162 U. S. 255. True it is that in Dower v. Richards, the Court, referring to the dictum in Republican River Bridge Co. v. Kansas Pacific Railway, 92 U. S. 315, 92 U. S. 317, treated as open for further consideration the question whether, in chancery cases, the power existed in this Court to review the decision of state courts on both the law and the fact. We, however, conclude that not only the very nature of a writ of error, but also the rulings of this Court from the beginning, make it clear that, on error to a state court in a chancery case, as in a case at law, when the facts are found by the court below, this Court is concluded by such findings. The adjudications are collected very fully in Dower v. Richards and in the subsequent cases above referred to.
108 U. S. 105; Gross v. United States Mortgage Co., 108 U. S. 477.
"Speaking of the nature of the work, the district judge says:"
"It is a public work, planned and located by state authority, and is a part of a system of levees ordered by the state for the prevention of overflows. It is the initial point of a line of levees the propriety, location, and construction of which have been determined by the state, acting through the State Board of Engineers, its accredited and duly authorized agents. It begins on the highlands on the west bank of the bayou and extends thence across the bayou to Hart's Island, and from there to Dixie Plantation, on Red River."
"The United States government has contributed four thousand dollars -- a sum equal to the price of Hart's contract with the state -- towards the cost of construction of the line of levees of which the dam in question is a part. Manifestly the claim that such a work undertaken by the state, with the aid of the general government, is the work of private persons, for private and selfish motives, is absolutely without foundation."
navigable stream, we have carefully considered the voluminous testimony on that part of the case and we are clear that the upper part of Bayou Pierre, in which the dam in question is situated, is not navigable, and that the navigation of even the lower part of Bayou Pierre, a considerable distance below the dam, is attended with many obstacles and difficulties. On this point, the district judge says:"
"From Grande Ecore, where it [Bayou Pierre] enters Red River, to a point some miles below its junction with Tone's Bayou, a stream flowing out of the river, Bayou Pierre has been frequently navigated by steamboats; but from the point of junction to the dam in question, it has never been navigated, and is unnavigable. Between these two points, it is nothing but a high water outlet, going dry every summer at many places, choked with rafts and filled with sand, reefs, etc. It has no channel. In various localities it spreads out into shallow lakes, and over a wide expanse of country, and is susceptible of being made navigable, just as a ditch could be if it were dug deep and wide enough, and kept supplied with a sufficiency of water."
"We fully concur in this finding. Besides, Bayou Pierre is wholly within the state, and the authority of the legislature over it is complete. Hamilton v. Railroad Co., 34 La.Ann. 975; Boykin v. Shaffer, 13 La.Ann. 129."
Now the foregoing findings by the trial court, approved and affirmed by the Supreme Court of Louisiana (that is, the nonnavigability of the stream, and the concurrent participation of the United States and the state in the building of the dam) are purely questions of fact, and therefore, as we have said, are conclusive.
It is clear that if these questions of fact are adequate to determine the controversy between the parties and broad enough to maintain the judgment independent of any federal question, that we are without jurisdiction, although the state court may have also decided such a question. Eustis v. Bolles, 150 U. S. 361; N.Y. & N.E. Railroad v. Woodruff, 153 U. S. 689; Hammond v. Conn. Mut. Life Ins. Co., 150 U. S. 633.
"any bridge . . . or other works over or in any . . . navigable waters of the United States under any act of the legislative assembly of any state until the location and plan of such bridge or other works have been submitted to and approved by the Secretary of War, or to excavate or fill or in any manner alter or modify the course, location, condition or capacity of the channel of said navigable waters of the United States unless approved by the Secretary of War."
But, by its plain terms, this statute relates solely to navigable waters, and one of the propositions of fact found by the supreme court of the state is that the stream in question was not navigable. The necessary effect, therefore, of accepting this finding is to take the case out of the reach of the law relied on, and this causes the question of fact (that is, nonnavigability) to be wholly and adequately sufficient to maintain the judgment without reference to the statute in question.
"Between these two points, it is nothing but a high water outlet, going dry every summer at many places, choked with rafts, and filled with sand, reefs, etc. It has no channel. In various localities, it spreads out into shallow lakes and over a wide expanse of country, and is susceptible of being made navigable, just as a ditch could be if it were dug deep and wide enough, and kept supplied with a sufficiency of water."
of the upper mouth of Bayou Pierre. Indeed, the finding amounts to saying that the stream formed by the junction of Bayou Pierre and Tone's Bayou is a new, and in reality a distinct and different, stream (although called by the same name) from the stream above the junction, and in which it is proposed to erect the dam. From these considerations it obviously results that the expression of opinion arguendo by the state court as to the power of the State of Louisiana to control a navigable stream wholly within its borders, even if erroneous, was unnecessary to the decision of the cause, and that the decree by that court rendered is adequately sustained by the conclusion of fact as to the nonnavigability of the stream. This being the case, it is unnecessary to consider whether the finding that the work of building the dam was concurrently carried on by the state and the United States is not also sufficient to sustain the decree below, since it practically determines that the dam was being constructed in conformity to the act of Congress.

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