Source: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/279/797.html
Timestamp: 2016-09-30 10:10:14
Document Index: 488995393

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 2', 'art 1', 'art 2', 'art 1', 'art. 1', 'art 2', 'art 1', 'art 1', 'art 1', 'art 1', 'art 2', 'art 2']

KIRK v. MAUMEE VALLEY ELECTRIC CO. | FindLaw
KIRK v. MAUMEE VALLEY ELECTRIC CO. KIRK v. MAUMEE VALLEY ELECTRIC CO. ResetAA
KIRK v. MAUMEE VALLEY ELECTRIC CO., (1929)
The canal in question and the waters passing through it are the property of the state, and all the leases were granted under the provisions of the Act of March 23, 1840 (38 Ohio Laws, p. 87), authorizing upon specified terms, disposition for hydraulic purposes of the surplus waters of the canals of the state not required for navigation. By section 22 of that act it was provided that no right to use the waters should be disposed of 'except such as shall accrue from the surplus water of the canal ... after supplying the full quantity necessary for the purposes of navigation,' and by section 23 it was enacted that the leases should contain, as did the present leases in substance, a stipu- [279 U.S. 797, 800]
lation that the state or its authorized agents 'may at any time resume the privilege or right to the use of water, or any portion thereof, whenever it may be deemed necessary for the purpose of navigation, or whenever its use for hydraulic purposes shall be found in any manner to interfere with and injuriously affect the navigation. ...'
By Act of May 11, 1927 (112 Ohio Laws, pp. 360-363; sections 14178 to 14178-12 of General Code of Ohio), it was directed that that portion of the Miami & Erie Canal known here as 'lineal part 2' be abandoned for both canal and hydraulic purposes and held by the state for the purpose of constructing a highway upon lands occupied by the canal. It transferred the abandoned part to the supervision and control of the state highway director and directed him within 60 days after the act should take effect, to drain the water from the abandoned part of the canal and to prevent water from flowing into or through that part. Section 4, provided that all leases previously granted for canal or hydraulic purposes on the part of the canal referred to 'shall become and be null and void on and after sixty days from the taking effect of this act.' Since lineal part 1, from which appellee withdraws water from the canal under its several leases, is fed only by the water flowing from lineal part 2, compliance with the statute will also result in draining the water from lineal part 1 of the canal and will drprive appellee of the use of the water which it has been withdrawing under its leases. [279 U.S. 797, 801]
Appellee asserts, as the district court held, that the effect of the act of 1927 is to impair the obligation of the contracts embodied in its leases in violation of section 10, art. 1, and to deprive it of property without due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution.
By Act of January 22, 1920 (108 Ohio Laws, part 2, p. 1138), the Ohio Legislature had declared that lineal part 1 of the canal should be abandoned. By the same act, purchase of this section by the city of Toledo was authorized, subject to the rights of owners of existing leases. It was provided that if the city should deprive the lessees of 'their water privileges' the city should pay them 'a fair compensation for the loss of the water to which they are entitled'1 and the conveyance to the city should so provide. Under this statute lineal part 1 was sold and conveyed to the city. Upon the adoption of a resolution by the city council directing that the water be shut off from lineal part 1, and upon refusal of the city to pay appellee for the deprivation of its use of the water, appellee brought suit in the Western Division of the Northern District of Ohio for an injunction restraining the city from cutting off the water. A decree of that court denying an injunction was reversed by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Maumee Valley Electric Co. v. City of Toledo, 13 F.(2d) 98. That court declined to pass upon the power and right of the state to abandon the canal and cut off the water from the lessees, but held that the city had entered into a contract with the state for the benefit of appellee to permit the water to flow through the canal unless compensation was paid. The bill of complaint in the present suit sets up the contract with the city and the [279 U.S. 797, 802]
decree in the suit in the Northern District, but that decree is not before us for review. It does not appear that the city threatens to violate the decree or that there are any circumstances entitling appellee to any further relief against it upon the contract for its benefit, or that the state through its legislation and conveyance of lineal part 1 to the city of Toledo intended to surrender or has surrendered any of its rights in or powers over lineal part 2, or has subjected itself to any new or additional obligation to maintain the canal or continue the flow of water through it.
The section of the canal now in question was originally constructed and operated by the state as a part of a larger canal system for purposes of navigation. By Act of February 23, 1820 (18 Ohio Laws, p. 147), commissioners were appointed to locate a canal between Lake Erie and the Ohio river. The canal was constructed under the Act of February 4, 1825 ( 23 Ohio Laws, p. 50), which created a board of canal commissioners and empowered them to construct a navigable canal, including the section presently involved, to take and use the waters of the state for that purpose, to establish reasonable tolls for the use of that canal and to provide for their collection. Provision was first made for the use of the surplus waters of the [279 U.S. 797, 803]
canal for hydraulic power by Act of February 18, 1830 (28 Ohio Laws, p. 58 ), which was superseded by the Act of March 23, 1840 (38 Ohio Laws, p. 87), under which the present leases were granted.
The paramount object of the state in constructing the canal was to effect navigable communication between Lake Erie and the Ohio river. See State ex rel. Attorney General v. Railway Co., 37 Ohio St. 157. The use of the water for hydraulic purposes was only incidental and subordinate to the declared purpose of the state to promote navigation and was expressly made so by the Leasing Act of 1840, which limited all leases to the use of surplus water not required for purposes of navigation and provided for their abrogation whenever the use of the water for hydraulic purposes interfered with navigation. Leases of surplus water, granted under the act of 1840 and similar in terms to those involved in the present litigation, have been repeatedly construed by the highest court of the state of Ohio, which has uniformly held that they were only incidental to the use and maintenance of the canal for purposes of navigation; that they imposed no obligation on the state to maintain the canal either for navigation or other purposes and when abandoned by the state the right of lessees to surplus water ceased. Hubbard v. City of Toledo (1871) 21 Ohio St. 379; Little Miami Elevator Co. v. Cincinnati (1876) 30 Ohio St. 629; Fox v. Cincinnati (1878) 33 Ohio St. 492; Vought v. Railroad Co. (1898) 58 Ohio St. 123, 161, 50 N. E. 442. In Fox v. Cincinnati, supra, it was held that a lease of surplus waters in the Miami & Erie Canal under the act of 1840 was subject to the power of the state to abandon the locus quo for purposes of navigation and to convert it into a city highway. On writ of error, this court affirmed the judgment of the state court (
, 785), saying by Chief Justice Waite:
'The use of the water for hydraulic purposes is but an incident to the principal object for which the canal was [279 U.S. 797, 804]
built; to wit, navigation. The large expenditures of the state were to furnish, not water-power, but a navigable highway for the transportation of persons and property. The authority of the board of public works to contract in respect to power was expressly confined to such water as remained after the wants of navigation had been supplied; and it never could have been intended in this way to impose on the state an obligation to keep up the canal, no matter what the cost, for the sole purpose of meeting the requirements of its water leases. There was certainly no duty resting on the state to maintain the canal for nevigation any longer than the public necessities seem to require. When it was no longer needed, it might be abandoned; and, if abandoned, the water might be withdrawn altogether.'
Even if it be assumed that there was a complete nonuse by the public of the canal for purposes of navigation as early as 1895, which seems to be in dispute, neither the court below nor the appellee points to any act or omission on the part of the state indicating abandonment of the canal by it as an instrument of navigation before the act of the Legislature of 1927, or any act devot- [279 U.S. 797, 805]
ing it to other purposes, other than the making of leases or grants which, as before, purported to deal only with surplus waters not required for navigation. Instead, reliance is placed on the fact that there had been a gradual abandonment of the use of the canal for navigation by the public.
The power to abandon the canal as an instrument of navigation resided in the state Legislature and has been exercised from time to time with respect to designated sections. 2
That it had not, before the act of 1927, abandoned the section of the canal now in question as such an instrumentality appears from the Act of the Legislature of April 25, 1898 ( 93 Ohio Laws, p. 370), authorizing the board of public works to grant leases or licenses to persons or corporations to operate boats in the canal by electric power and requiring them to propel the boats of others for hire and by the Act of April 9, 1902 (95 Ohio Laws, p. 118), declaring it to be the settled policy of the state to maintain the [279 U.S. 797, 806]
We find in this case no circumstances differentiating it from the earlier decisions in this and the Ohio courts. In each, as in the present case, the failure of the public to make sufficient use of a particular sector for transportation led to its abandonment and appropriation to other purposes and to the necessary termination of all rights under grants of surplus water which, being but incidents to the maintenance of the canal for navigation, ceased when that purpose was abandoned. The fact that some of the earlier cases involved other state canals on which there was still some navigation at the time of the granting of the leases there involved, and the additional fact that the present appellee under its supplemental agreement with the state bears the expense of maintaining and patroling the canal, we do not regard as sufficient to differentiate this case from those so long acquiesced in. Nor can the case of State ex rel. Crabbe v. Middletown Hydraulic Co., 114 Ohio St. 437, 151 N. E. 653, be taken to have overruled, sub silentio, the rule announced in the former cases which was not involved in its decision. [279 U.S. 797, 807]
] Similar legislation authorizing the purchase of lineal part 2 by the county commissioners of Lucas county was enacted March 27, 1925. 111 Ohio Laws, p. 367. The option to purchase has not been exercised. [
] Act of March 24, 1863, 60 Ohio Laws, p. 44 (involved in Fox v. Cincinnati, supra); Act of March 26, 1864, 61 Ohio Laws, p. 74; Act of April 12, 1888, 85 Ohio Laws, p. 207; Act of March 3, 1891, 88 Ohio Laws, p. 72; Act of January 22, 1920, 108 Ohio Laws, pt. 2, p. 1138; Act of March 25, 1925, 111 Ohio Laws p.208; Act of March 27, 1925, 111 Ohio Laws, p. 367; Act of April 21, 1927, 112 Ohio Laws, p. 388; Act of May 11, 1927, 112 Ohio Laws, p. 360. FindLaw Career Center