Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/104762/bryant-vs-yellen
Timestamp: 2018-02-23 20:57:58
Document Index: 499652165

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 46', '§ 46', '§ 46', '§ 14', '§ 12', '§ 46', 'art 2', '§ 423', '§ 14', '§ 46', '§ 46', '§ 46', '§ 46', '§ 46', '§ 46', '§ 14', '§ 6', '§ 6', '§ 6', '§ 6', '§ 8', '§ 18', '§ 6', '§ 46', '§ 46', '§ 46', '§ 6', '§ 14', '§ 46', '§ 6']

Bryant Vs Yellen - Citation 104762 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Bryant Vs. Yellen - Court Judgment
LegalCrystal Citation legalcrystal.com/104762
Case Number 447 U.S. 352
Respondent Yellen
bryant v. yellen - 447 u.s. 352 (1980) u.s. supreme court bryant v. yellen, 447 u.s. 352 (1980) bryant v. yellen no. 79-421 argued march 25, 1980 decided june 16, 1980 * 447 u.s. 352 certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit syllabus the principal question in this action is whether the general rule under federal reclamation laws limiting irrigation water deliveries from reclamation projects to 160 acres under single ownership applies to certain private lands in imperial valley, cal., being irrigated with colorado river water through the irrigation system constructed pursuant to the boulder canyon project act (project act). when the project act became effective in 1929, a large.....
Bryant v. Yellen - 447 U.S. 352 (1980)
U.S. Supreme Court Bryant v. Yellen, 447 U.S. 352 (1980)
Decided June 16, 1980 *
1. Since it is unlikely that any of the owners of excess lands would sell land at below current market prices absent the applicability of § 46, whereas it is likely that such lands would become available at less than market prices if § 46 were applied, the Court of Appeals properly concluded that respondents had a sufficient stake in the outcome of the controversy to afford them standing to appeal the District Court's decision, even though they could not with certainty establish that they would be able to purchase excess lands if § 46 were held applicable. Pp. 447 U. S. 366 -368.
3. There is nothing in the Project Act's legislative history to cast doubt on the foregoing construction of the Act or to suggest that Congress intended § 14, by bringing the 1926 Act into play to interfere with the delivery of water to those lands already under irrigation in Imperial Valley and having present perfected rights that the Secretary was bound to recognize. Moreover, the contemporary construction of the Project Act by the parties to the 1932 contract was that the acreage limitation did not apply to lands in the District presently being irrigated, and this contemporaneous view of the Act, which supports the foregoing construction of the legislation, was not officially repudiated by the Secretary until 1964. Pp. 447 U. S. 374 -378.
Imperial Valley is an area located south of the Salton Sea in southeastern California. It lies below sea level, and is an arid desert in its natural state. In 1901, however, irrigation began in the Valley, using water diverted from the Colorado River, which in that area marks the border between California and Arizona. Until at least 1940, irrigation water was brought to the Valley by means of a canal and distribution system that were completely privately financed. On June 25, 1929, when the Project Act became effective, the District [ Footnote 1 ] was diverting, transporting, and delivering water to 424,145 acres of privately owned and very productive farmland in Imperial Valley. [ Footnote 2 ] Under neither state law nor private irrigation arrangements in existence in Imperial Valley prior to 1929 was there any restriction on the number of acres that a single landholder could own and irrigate.
The Project Act was the culmination of the efforts of the seven States in the Colorado River Basin to control flooding, regulate water supplies on a predictable basis, allocate waters among the Upper and Lower Basin States and among the States in each basin, and connect the river to the Imperial Valley by a canal that did not pass through Mexico. [ Footnote 3 ] In 1922, the seven States executed the Colorado River Compact (Compact) allocating the waters of the river between the Upper and Lower Basins, and among other things providing in Art. VIII that "[p]resent perfected rights to the beneficial use of waters of the Colorado River System are unimpaired by this compact." [ Footnote 4 ] The Project Act, passed in
1928 and effective in 1929, implemented and ratified the Compact; contained its own formula for allocating Lower Basin water among California, Arizona, and Nevada, Arizona v. California, 373 U. S. 546 (1963); and authorized the construction of the works required for the harnessing and more efficient utilization of the unruly river. The principal works of the Project, consisting of the Hoover Dam at Black Canyon and the storage facilities behind it, served to implement the division of the Compact. The dam was completed and storage began in 1935. [ Footnote 5 ]
Section 1 of the Project Act, which provided for the dam at Black Canyon, also authorized the construction of a new canal, the All-American Canal, which would replace the Alamo Canal and would traverse only territory located in the United States. A new diversion dam for Imperial Valley water was also authorized. Section 1 went on to provide that no charge should be made for the storage or delivery of irrigation or potable water to Imperial or Coachella Valley. [ Footnote 6 ]
Section 4(a) of the Project Act conditioned the effectiveness of the Act on the ratification of the compact by the signatory States. [ Footnote 7 ] Section 4(b), as well as requiring contractual provision for the repayment of specified costs with respect to the Hoover Dam, required that, before any money was appropriated for the Imperial Valley works, the Secretary was to make provision for revenues "by contract or otherwise" to insure payment of all "expenses of construction, operation, and maintenance of said main canal and appurtenant structures in the manner provided in the reclamation law." Section 5 authorized the Secretary to contract for the storage of water and for its delivery at such points on the river and the canal as were agreed upon. Contracts were to be for permanent service, and were required before any person would be entitled to stored water.
The "reclamation law" referred to was defined in § 12 as the Act of June 17, 1902 (Reclamation Act), 32 Stat. 388, and Acts amendatory thereof and supplemental thereto. One of the statutes amendatory of or supplemental to the Reclamation Act was the Omnibus Adjustment Act of 1926 (1926 Act), § 46 of which, 44 Stat. (part 2) 649, 43 U.S.C. § 423e, forbade delivery of reclamation project water to any irrigable land held in private ownership by one owner in excess of 160 acres, [ Footnote 8 ] and required owners to execute recordable contracts for the sale of excess lands before such lands could receive project water.
Pursuant to the Project Act, the United States and the District entered into a contract on December 1, 1932, providing for the construction of the Imperial Dam and the All-American Canal. The District undertook to pay the cost of the works, and to include within itself certain public lands of the United States and other specified lands. [ Footnote 9 ] The United States undertook to deliver to the Imperial Dam the water which would be carried by the new canal to the various lands to be served by it. The contract contained no acreage limitation provision. Pursuant to this contract, the United States constructed the Imperial Dam in the Colorado River -- some
distance below Black Canyon but upriver from the existing point of diversion -- and the All-American Canal connecting the dam and Imperial Valley. Use of the canal began in 1940, and by 1942, it carried all Colorado River water used by Imperial Valley. [ Footnote 10 ]
Article 31 of the contract between the District and the United States provided that the United States would not be bound by the contract until and unless court proceedings had been instituted by the District and a final judgment obtained confirming the authorization and the validity of the contract. [ Footnote 11 ] Such an action, entitled Hewes v. All Persons, No. 15460, Superior Court, Imperial County, was instituted, and final
"Upon careful consideration the view was reached that this limitation does not apply to lands now cultivated and having a present water right. These lands, having already a water right, are entitled to have such vested right recognized without regard to the acreage limitation mentioned. Congress evidently recognized that these lands had a vested right when the provision was inserted that no charge shall be made for the storage, use, or delivery of water to be furnished these areas. [ Footnote 12 ]"
The trial court in the Hewes case expressly found and concluded that eligibility for project water was not limited to 160-acre tracts in single ownership. [ Footnote 13 ] An appeal in the case was dismissed before judgment. The United States was not a party to the action.
The Wilbur letter expressing the view that lands under irrigation at the time the Project Act was passed and having a present water right were not subject to the 60-acre limitation remained the official view of the Department of the Interior until 1964, [ Footnote 14 ] when the Department adopted the view
The opinion recognized that, under § 14 of the Project Act, the construction, operation, and management of the works were to be subject to the provisions of the reclamation law, except as the Act otherwise provided, and that one of the most significant limitations in the Project Act on the Secretary's authority to contract for the delivery of water is the requirement to satisfy present perfected rights, "a matter of intense importance to those who had reduced their water rights to actual beneficial use at the time the Act became effective." 373 U.S. at 373 U. S. 584 . The decree, which was entered on March 9, 1964, 376 U. S. 376 U.S. 340, defined a perfected right as:
Id. at 376 U. S. 341 . Present perfected rights were defined as those perfected rights "existing as of June 25, 1929, the effective date of the Boulder Canyon Project Act." Ibid. The decree also provided for the future determination of the specific present perfected rights in each of the Lower Basin States. A supplemental decree was eventually forthcoming, 439 U. S. 439 U.S. 419 (1979), and, in that decree, the Imperial Irrigation District was adjudged to have a present perfected right
As already indicated, the Department of the Interior repudiated the Wilbur interpretation of the Project Act in 1964. It then sought to include its revised position in a renegotiated contract with the District. When the District refused to accept the Department's position, the United States sued the District in 1967 for a declaratory judgment that the excess acreage limitation of § 46 applied to all private lands in the Valley. The District Court permitted several Imperial Valley landowners to intervene as defendants representing the certified class of all landowners owning more than 160 acres. [ Footnote 15 ] It then ruled against the Government, holding for several reasons that "the land limitation provisions of reclamation law have no application to privately owned lands lying within the Imperial Irrigation District," and that the District is not bound to observe such limitations. 322 F.Supp. at 27. The Department of the Interior recommended, and the Solicitor
General decided, after reviewing the case, that an appeal not be prosecuted on behalf of the United States. [ Footnote 16 ] In consequence, respondents, a group of Imperial Valley residents, who had been given leave to participate as amici in the District Court and who desired to purchase the excess lands that might become available if § 46 were held applicable, attempted to intervene for purpose of appeal, but the District Court denied the motion. The Court of Appeals reversed the denial, 559 F.2d at 543-544, and proceeded to hold that the appealing intervenors had standing under Art. III of the Constitution; that Hewes v. All Persons was not conclusive with respect to acreage limitation; that the clear import of § 46 and the Project Act was that the 160-acre limitation is applicable to the Imperial Valley; and that the Department's administrative practice over the years did not bar application of the limitation to the Valley.
Valley and that, if § 46 were applied as they believed it should be, there would be excess lands available for purchase at prices below the market value for irrigated land. [ Footnote 17 ] The Court of Appeals, although recognizing that no owner of excess lands would be required to sell, concluded that it would be highly improbable that all owners of excess lands would prefer to withdraw their irrigable lands from agriculture in order to avoid § 46. In these circumstances, the Court of Appeals ruled that, under Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U. S. 252 (1977), and other cases, respondents had standing even though they could not with certainty establish that they would be able to purchase excess lands if § 46 were held applicable. [ Footnote 18 ]
We are unable, however, to agree with the Court of Appeals that Congress intended that the 160-acre limitation of the 1926 Act would apply to the lands under irrigation in Imperial Valley in 1929. [ Footnote 19 ] Under § 14 of the Project Act, the construction, operation, and management of the project works were to be governed by the reclamation law, but only if not otherwise provided for in the Project Act. Section 46 of the 1926 Act is one of the reclamation laws; and its acreage limitation,
We find this disposition of the § 6 defense to the application of the 1926 Act's acreage limitation to be unpersuasive. Arizona v. California, supra at 373 U. S. 584 , recognized that "one of the most significant limitations" on the Secretary's power under the Project Act was the requirement that he satisfy present perfected rights, a matter of great significance to those who had reduced their water rights to beneficial use prior to 1929. Accordingly, in our initial decree, the perfected right protected by § 6 was defined with some care: a right that had been acquired in accordance with state law and that had been exercised by the actual diversion of a specific quantity of water
and its application to a defined area of land. [ Footnote 20 ] In our supplemental decree, entered prior to the opinion of the Court of Appeals denying rehearing and rehearing en banc, there was decreed to the District a present perfected water right of 2.6 million acre-feet of diversions from the mainstream or the quantity of water necessary to supply the consumptive use required to irrigate 424,145 acres and related uses, whichever was less, with a priority date of 1901. 439 U.S. at 439 U. S. 429 . We thus determined that, as of 1929, the District had perfected its rights under state law to divert the specified amount of water and had actually diverted that water to irrigate the defined quantity and area of land. As we see it, the Court of Appeals failed to take adequate account of § 6 of the Project Act and its implementation in our opinion and decrees filed in the Arizona v. California litigation.
In the first place, it bears emphasizing that the § 6 perfected right is a water right originating under state law. In Arizona v. California, we held that the Project Act vested in the Secretary the power to contract for project water deliveries independent of the direction of § 8 of the Reclamation Act to proceed in accordance with state law and of the admonition of § 18 of the Project Act not to interfere with state law. 373 U.S. at 373 U. S. 586 -588. [ Footnote 21 ] We nevertheless clearly recognized that § 6 of the Project Act, requiring satisfaction of present perfected rights, was an unavoidable limitation on the Secretary's power, and that, in providing for these rights, the Secretary
must take account of state law. In this respect, state law was not displaced by the Project Act, and must be consulted in determining the content and characteristics of the water right that was adjudicated to the District by our decree. [ Footnote 22 ]
It may be true, as the Court of Appeals said, that no individual farm in the District has a permanent right to any specific proportion of the water held in trust by the District. But there is no doubt that, prior to 1929, the District, in exercising its rights as trustee, delivered water to individual farmer beneficiaries without regard to the amount of land under single ownership. It has been doing so ever since. There is no suggestion, by the Court of Appeals or otherwise, that, as a matter of state law and absent the interposition of some federal duty, the District did not have the right and privilege to exercise and use its water right in this manner. Nor has it been suggested that the District, absent some duty or disability imposed by federal law, could have rightfully denied water to individual farmers owning more than 160 acres. Indeed, as a matter of state law, not only did the District's water right entitle it to deliver water to the farms in the District regardless of size, but also the right was equitably owned by the beneficiaries to whom the District was obligated to deliver water. [ Footnote 23 ]
prior to the passage of the Project Act. To apply § 46 would go far toward emasculating the substance, under state law, of the water right decreed to the District, as well as substantially limiting its duties to, and the rights of, the farmer beneficiaries in the District. [ Footnote 24 ]
It should also be recalled that we defined a present perfected right as one that had not only been acquired pursuant to state law, but as one that had also been exercised by the diversion of water and its actual application to a specific area of land. We did not intend to decree a water right to the District under this definition, conditioned upon proof of actual diversion and use, but nevertheless to require the District to terminate service to the lands on the basis of which the right was decreed. The District has itself no power to require that excess lands be sold, and it is a contradiction in terms to say, as the Court of Appeals did, that the District has present perfected rights, but that § 46 requires it to terminate deliveries to all persons with excess lands who refuse to sell. [ Footnote 25 ] We consequently hold that the perfected water right decreed to the District may be exercised by it without regard to the
land limitation provisions of § 46 of the 1926 Act or to any similar provisions of the reclamation laws. [ Footnote 26 ]
The legislative history of the Project Act, which spans several years, raises no doubt in our minds about the foregoing construction of the Act. [ Footnote 27 ] Our attention has been called to nothing in the relevant materials indicating that although Congress was careful to preserve present perfected rights in § 6, other provisions of the Project Act were nevertheless intended to invoke acreage limitation with respect to lands already being irrigated in Imperial Valley by means of water diverted from the Colorado River and delivered to the Valley by the District's own works. Indeed, the version of the Project Act passed in the House contained an express acreage limitation applicable to all privately owned lands; but the Senate substituted the provisions of its own bill, which did not contain an acreage limitation expressly applicable to lands then being irrigated, and it was this version which became the Project Act despite objections in the Senate that the bill should be amended to limit water deliveries to 160 acres under single ownership. There is nothing in this chain of events to suggest that Congress intended § 14, by bringing the 1926 Act into play, to interfere with the delivery of water to those lands already under irrigation in Imperial Valley and having present perfected rights that the Secretary was bound to
recognize. [ Footnote 28 ] If anything, the inference from the legislative history is to the contrary. This is not to say that we rely strongly on legislative materials in construing the Project
Act. Statements by the opponents of a bill and failure to enact suggested amendments, although they have some weight, are not the most reliable indications of congressional intention. Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U. S. 185 , 425 U. S. 204 , n. 24 (1976); Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U. S. 367 , 395 U. S. 381 -382, n. 11 (1969). But we do say that the respondents have not called our attention to anything in the hearings, Committee Reports, or floor debates suggesting in any substantial way that our construction of the Project Act is in error.
There can be little question that the contemporary construction of the Project Act by the parties to the 1932 contract was that the acreage limitation did not apply to lands in the District presently being irrigated. Secretary Wilbur, in his letter of February 24, 1933, stated that, early in the negotiations on the All-American Canal contract, the question was raised as to the 160-acre limitation, and the view was reached that the limitation did not apply to lands that were under cultivation and having a present water right. [ Footnote 29 ] There is no reason to doubt that the parties went forward on this basis, especially since language in early drafts of the contract which might have indicated an acreage limitation was eliminated in the course of the negotiations. The Imperial Valley system was a going concern at the time, and the Alamo Canal continued to supply the water to the Valley for another 10 years. It is thus a fair inference that both the Imperial Valley landowners and the United States proceeded on the assumption that the 160-acre limit was of no concern to those who were receiving water from the Alamo Canal. This contemporaneous view of the Project Act, which supports our own construction of the legislation, was not officially repudiated by the Secretary until 1964. It is also a matter of unquestioned fact that, in the ensuing years, the Secretary has delivered water to the District pursuant to its contract, and that the 160-acre
provision of the reclamation laws has to this date never been an operative limitation with respect to lands under irrigation in 1929. [ Footnote 30 ]
acreage limitations to this additional 14,000 acres, there would remain to be disposed of those arguments of petitioners for reversing the Court of Appeals which we have not addressed and which, if sustained, would exempt from acreage limitations all privately owned lands in Imperial Valley, a result which the District Court seemingly embraced. [ Footnote 31 ] The parties, however, have not separately addressed the status of this additional 14,000 acres; nor does the record invite us to deal further with this case without additional proceedings in the lower court. We do not know, for example, whether the District is still irrigating the additional 14,000 acres, whether any of the 14,000 acres consists of lands held in excess of 160 acres, or whether, for some other reason of fact or law, there is not now a controversy that requires further adjudication. Even if a live dispute remains, it would be helpful to have the Court of Appeals, or the District Court, in the first instance, if the Court of Appeals deems it advisable, adjudicate the status of the 14,000 acres, freed of any misapprehensions about the applicability of the 160-acre limitation to lands under irrigation in 1929.
adjudicated to have a perfected water right as of that date. The judgment is otherwise vacated, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. [ Footnote 32 ]
The genesis of the Project Act and of the Colorado River Compact is described at greater length in Arizona v. California, 373 U. S. 546 , 373 U. S. 552 -562 (1963).
While the prospect of windfall profits could attract a large number of potential purchasers of the excess lands, respondents' interest is not "shared in substantially equal measure by all or a large class of citizens," Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490 , 422 U. S. 499 (1975), because respondents are residents of the Imperial Valley who desire to purchase the excess land for purposes of farming.
Ever since its enactment in 1902, the reclamation law has generally limited to 160 acres the amount of private land in single ownership eligible to receive water from a reclamation project. This limitation helps open project lands to settlement by farmers of modest means, insures wide distribution of the benefits of federal projects, and guards against the possibility that speculators will earn windfall profits from the increase in value of their lands resulting from the federal project. See also Ivanhoe Irrig. Dist. v. McCracken, 357 U. S. 275 , 357 U. S. 292 (1958). The excess acreage limitation has been retained in successive statutes culminating in § 46 of the 1926 Act.
While the source of present perfected rights is to be found in state law, the question of whether rights provided by state law amount to present perfected rights within the meaning of § 6 is obviously one of federal law. See Ivanhoe Irrig. Dist. v. McCracken, supra at 357 U. S. 289 ; California v. United States, supra at 438 U. S. 668 -669, n. 21, 438 U. S. 671 -673, 438 U. S. 678 , n. 31.
In Ivanhoe Irrig. Dist. v. McCracken, supra at 357 U. S. 292 , the Court remarked that, where a particular project has been exempted from the acreage limitation because of its peculiar circumstances, "the Congress has always made such exemption by express enactment." As we have explained, we have little trouble in concluding that the Project Act's provision for the satisfaction of perfected rights acquired under state law is an effective expression that the acreage limitation would be inapplicable to the lands served under such rights. As the Special Master observed in Arizona v. California,