Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/401/527
Timestamp: 2015-04-26 16:01:28
Document Index: 469588410

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 666', '§ 666', '§ 666', '§ 148', '§ 148', '§ 148']

UNITED STATES v. The DISTRICT COURT IN AND FOR WATER DIVISION NO. 5, State of COLORADO et al. | LII / Legal Information Institute
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401 U.S. 527 (91 S.Ct. 1003, 28 L.Ed.2d 284)
UNITED STATES v. The DISTRICT COURT IN AND FOR WATER DIVISION NO. 5, State of COLORADO et al.
In this companion case to United States v. District Court for Eagle County, 401 U.S. 520, 91 S.Ct. 998, 28 L.Ed.2d 278, the United States had been served with notice pursuant to 43 U.S.C. 666 of a proceeding in state court for the adjudication of water rights affecting areas of the State in the drainage basins of the Colorado River system. In addition to its claim that § 666 does not apply to state court suits against the Government for adjudication of its reserved water rights, the Government contended that the state statutory proceedings involved in this case, which contemplated monthly proceedings before a water referee on water rights applications filed within a particular month, do not constitute general adjudications of water rights under § 666 because all the water users and all water rights on a stream system are not implicated in the referee's determinations. The Government's contentions were rejected by the state courts. Held:
2. The state statutory proceedings are within the scope of § 666 and reach all claims in their totality, although the adjudication is made on a monthly basis. Pp. 529530.
This is a companion case to the Eagle County case 401 U.S. 520, 91 S.Ct. 998, 28 L.Ed.2d 278, and involves an action brought under a different state statute
That court was given responsibility for water rights determinations affecting 'all lands in the state of Colorado in the drainage basins of the Colorado river and all of its tributaries arising within Colorado, with the exception of the Gunnison river,'
Notice was served on the United States pursuant to 43 U.S.C. 666(b) and it moved to quash the service. That motion was denied. A writ of prohibition was sought in the Supreme Court and it was also denied. The case is here on a petition for a writ of certiorari which we granted. 400 U.S. 940, 91 S.Ct. 246, 27 L.Ed.2d 244.
The major issuethe scope of the consent-to-be-sued provision in 43 U.S.C. 666has been covered in the Eagle County opinion and need not be repeated here.
It is argued from those premises that the proceeding does not constitute a general adjudication which 43 U.S.C. 666 contemplated. As we said in the Eagle County case, the words 'general adjudication' were used in Dugan v. Rank, 372 U.S. 609, 618, 83 S.Ct. 999, 1005, 10 L.Ed.2d 15, to indicate that 43 U.S.C. 666 does not cover consent by the United States to be sued in a private suit to determine its rights against a few claimants. The present suit, like the one in the Eagle County case, reaches all claims, perhaps month by month but inclusively in the totality; and, as we said in the other case, if there is a collision between prior adjudicated rights and reserved rights of the United States, the federal question can be preserved in the state decision and brought here for review.
The Colorado Water Rights Determination and Administration Act of 1969, Colo.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 148211 et seq., Colo.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 1482118(3) (Supp. 1969).
Colo.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 148218(6).