Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/160/452.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 20:56:46+00:00

Document:
William B. Eldridge, a citizen of the state of Mississippi, filed in the circuit court of the United States for the Western district of Louisiana a bill of complaint against Henry B. Richardson, chief of the board of engineers of the state of Louisiana, and Peter J. Trezevant, citizens of Louisiana, whereby he sought to have the defendants enjoined from the construction of a certain public levee through a plantation belonging to the complainant, and situated in Carroll township, state of Louisiana.
The case was heard upon the issues presented by the bill and answer, supplemented with an admission that none of the acts complained of in the bill were wanton, malicious, or arbitrary.
On June 20, 1891, a decree was rendered adjudging the sufficiency of the answer, and dismissing the bill, from which decree an appeal was taken to this court. [160 U.S. 452, 453] Wade R. Young, for appellant.
[160 U.S. 452, 461] M. J. Cunningham and T. M. Miller, for appellees.
By an act of the general assembly of the state of Louisiana approved February 10, 1879, there was created a board of state engineers, whose duty it was to make a survey of the water courses, public works, and levees of the state. They were to report to the governor of the state the improvements which they should deem necessary, and the construction of such levees as were of prime importance to the state at large and were beyond the means of the parochial authorities. They were also, in said report, to furnish estimates and specifications of work necessary to be done. It was thereupon made the duty of the governor to advertise for proposals to make such improvements and construct such levees as were recommended, and to award the contracts to the lowest responsible bidder, under proper and sufficient bonds for the faithful performance of their contracts; and, upon completion of said works, it was made the duty of the board of engineers to examine and measure the work, and to certify to its correctness; and, upon approval by the governor, the auditor of public accounts of the state was to draw his warrant therefor, payable out of the general engineer fund, or such fund as should be provided by law.
In the exercise of the powers thus conferred, the board of engineers reported to the governor that it was necessary to construct a levee across complainant's plantation; that such levee was of prime importance to the state at large; would have to be of large size; that the river front was a dangerous and constantly caving bank; and that, necessarily, the levee had to be located some distance from the river; and they [160 U.S. 452, 462] furnished estimates and specifications of the work necessary to be done. Subsequently, after advertising for proposals, the governor awarded the contract for constructing the levees proposed to the defendant Peter J. Trezevant, as the lowest responsible bidder, who was, at the time of filing of the bill, proceeding with the work.
The plaintiff expressly admits, in his bill, that, although the constitution of the state of Louisiana contains a provision that private property shall not be taken or damaged without adequate and just compensation being first paid, the laws of the state, as interpreted by the supreme court of the state, provide no remedy for cases of proceedings under the levee laws, and that the supreme court of the state has decided that such taking, damage, and destruction of property for the purpose of building a public levee is an exercise of the police power of the state, and damnum absque injuria, because the state has a right of servitude or easement over the lands on the shores of navigable rivers for the making and repairing of levees, roads, and other public works. But he contends that as he cannot sue the state for compensation, and as an action at law, if such would lie, would not furnish that just and adequate compensation first paid contemplated by the provision of the state constitution, he has a right, as a citizen of another state, to invoke, in the circuit court of the United States, the protection of the Fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States, which provides that no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws.
The concession distinctly made by the complainant, in his bill, that the state courts refuse to recognize that owners of lands abutting on the Mississippi river and the bayous running to and from the same, where levees are necessary to confine the waters and to protect the inhabitants against inundation, are entitled, when a public levee is located upon such lands, to invoke the application of that provision of the state constitution which provides that 'private property shall not be taken nor damaged for public use without just and adequate com- [160 U.S. 452, 463] pensation first paid' (Const. La. art. 156), and repeated in the brief filed on his behalf in this court, relieves us from an extended examination of the origin and history of the state enactments, constitutional and legislative, and of the decisions of the state courts on this subject.
'In this state, so much exposed to ruinous inundations, the public have the undoubted right, on the shores of the Mississippi river, to the use of the space of ground necessary for the making and repairing of the public levees and roads. Civ. Code, art. 665. It was the condition of the ancient grants of land on the Mississippi river, and sufficient depth was always given to each tract to prevent the exercise of the public rights form proving ruinous to the individual.
In the case of Bass v. State, 34 La. Ann. 494, the supreme court again held that an owner of land abutting on the Mississippi river could not recover for damages inflicted upon his property by the state board of engineers and contractors in locating and constructing a public levee, but put the immunity of the state mainly upon the proposition that such public works are done in the exercise of the police power, and did not advert to the doctrine of servitude, upon which the previous decision had placed such immunity.
But we do not understand that the supreme court of the state intended thereby to repudiate the doctrine of a servitude, explicitly declared in the Code, and recognized, through a long period, by many decisions. If, to approve the judgment in that case, it were necessary to hold that the state and its agents can take private property, wherever situated, and apply it to any public purposes, and escape from the duty of compensation, by terming such action an exercise of the police power, it is difficult to see how such a conclusion could be reached by the courts of a state in whose constitution is to be found a provision that private property shall not be taken for public use without just and adequate compensation first made. But, as we have said, it is not necessary to so read the decision in question, nor to consider whether, even in such a case, a remedy could be found in any provision of the federal constitution.
With the admission that, under the state constitution and laws, as construed by the highest court of the state, the plaintiff below was not entitled to the remedies he sought, we are requested to hold that he can obtain relief by invoking, in a circuit court of the United States, the protection of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States, which declares that no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The first contention of the plaintiff in error is that, as it is admitted that he owns the land in fee through title derived by patent from the United States, without reservation, whatever may have been the conditions of the ancient grants, no such condition attaches to his ownership, and the lands, although bordering on a navigable stream, are as much within the protection of the constitutional principle awarding compensation as other property. In other words, the claim is that the servitude under which are held lands whose titles are derived by grant from Spain of France, or from the state, does not attach to lands whose titles are derived from the United States.
Previous decisions of this court furnish a ready answer to this contention.
These decisions not only dispose of the proposition that lands situated wihtin a state, but whose title is derived from the United States, are entitled to be exempted from local regulations admitted to be applicable to lands held by grant form the state, but also of the other proposition that the provisions of the fourteenth amendment extend to and override public rights, existing in the form of servitudes or easements, held by the courts of a state to be valid under the constitution and laws of such state.
The subject-matter of such rights and regulations falls within the control of the states, and the provisions of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States are satisfied if, in cases like the present one, the state law, with its benefits and its obligations, is impartially [160 U.S. 452, 469] ADMINISTERED. WALKER V. SAUVINET, 92 U. s. 90; davidson V. new orleAns, 96 u. S. 97; Missouri v. Lewis, 101 U.S. 31 ; Hallinger v. Davis, 146 U.S. 314 , 13 Sup. Ct. 105.
The plaintiff in error is, indeed, not a citizen of Louisiana, but he concedes that, as respects his property in that state, he has received the same measure of right as that awarded to its citizens; and we are unable to see, in the light of the federal constitution, that he has been deprived of his property without due process of law, or been denied the equal protection of the laws.

References: art. 156
 art. 665
 v. 
 V. 
 V. 
 v. 
 v.