Opinion ID: 106566
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: relief granted against federal officers.

Text: The Court of Appeals correctly held that the United States was empowered to acquire the water rights of respondents by physical seizure. As early as 1937, by the Rivers and Harbors Act, 50 Stat. 844, 850, the Congress had provided that the Secretary of the Interior may acquire by proceedings in eminent domain, or otherwise, all lands, rights-of-way, water rights, and other property necessary for said purposes . . . . Likewise, in United States v. Gerlach Live Stock Co., supra , this Court implicitly recognized that such rights were subject to seizure when we held that Gerlach and others were entitled to compensation therefor. The question was specifically settled in Ivanhoe Irrigation District v. McCracken, supra , where we said that such rights could be acquired by the payment of compensation either through condemnation or, if already taken, through action of the owners in the courts. 357 U. S., at 291. However, the Court of Appeals, in examining the extent of the taking here, concluded that rather than an authorized taking of water rights, the action of the Reclamation Bureau officials constituted an unauthorized trespass. The court observed that the San Joaquin will not be dried up below Friant because the Government has contracted with other water right owners to maintain a live stream, and as the flow of water varies from day to day the respondents do not now and never will know what part of their claimed water rights the Government has taken or will take. A casual day by day taking under these circumstances constitutes day to day trespass upon the water right. . . . The cloud cast prospectively on the water right by the assertion of a power to take creates a present injury above what has been suffered by the interference itselfa present loss in property value which cannot be compensated until it can be measured. 293 F. 2d, at 358. The court, therefore, permitted the suit against the petitioning Reclamation Bureau officers as one in trespass, which led it to affirm, with modification, the injunctive relief granted by the District Court. Rather than a trespass, we conclude that there was, under respondents' allegations, a partial taking of respondents' claimed rights. We believe that the Court of Appeals incorrectly applied the principle of Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Corp., 337 U. S. 682 (1949), and other cases in the field of sovereign immunity. The general rule is that a suit is against the sovereign if the judgment sought would expend itself on the public treasury or domain, or interfere with the public administration, Land v. Dollar, 330 U. S. 731, 738 (1947), or if the effect of the judgment would be to restrain the Government from acting, or to compel it to act. Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Corp., supra, at 704; Ex parte New York, 256 U. S. 490, 502 (1921). The decree here enjoins the federal officials from impounding, or diverting, or storing for diversion, or otherwise impeding or obstructing the full natural flow of the San Joaquin River . . . . Transcript of Record, Vol. III, p. 1021. As the Court of Appeals found, the Project could not operate without impairing, to some degree, the full natural flow of the river. Experience of over a decade along the stretch of the San Joaquin involved here indicates clearly that the impairment was most substantialalmost three-fourths of the natural flow of the river. To require the full natural flow of the river to go through the dam would force the abandonment of this portion of a project which has not only been fully authorized by the Congress but paid for through its continuing appropriations. Moreover, it would prevent the fulfillment of the contracts made by the United States with the Water and Utility Districts, which are petitioning in No. 115. The Government would, indeed, be stopped in its tracks . . . . Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Corp., supra, at 704. The physical solution has no less direct effect. The Secretary of the Interior, the President and the Congress have authorized the Project as now constructed and operated. Its plans do not include the 10 additional dams required by the physical solution to be built at government expense. The judgment, therefore, would not only interfere with the public administration but also expend itself on the public treasury . . . . Land v. Dollar, supra, at 738. Moreover, the decree would require the United Statescontrary to the mandate of the Congress to dispose of valuable irrigation water and deprive it of the full use and control of its reclamation facilities. It is therefore readily apparent that the relief granted operates against the United States. Nor do we believe that the action of the Reclamation Bureau officials falls within either of the recognized exceptions to the above general rule as reaffirmed only last Term. Malone v. Bowdoin, 369 U. S. 643. See Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Corp., supra ; Santa Fe Pac. R. Co. v. Fall, 259 U. S. 197, 199 (1922); Scranton v. Wheeler, 179 U. S. 141, 152-153 (1900). Those exceptions are (1) action by officers beyond their statutory powers and (2) even though within the scope of their authority, the powers themselves or the manner in which they are exercised are constitutionally void. Malone v. Bowdoin, supra, at 647. In either of such cases the officer's action can be made the basis of a suit for specific relief against the officer as an individual . . . . Ibid. But the fact that the Court of Appeals characterized the action of the officers as a trespass does not at all establish that it was either unconstitutional or unauthorized. As this Court said in Larson, supra, at 693: The mere allegation that the officer, acting officially, wrongfully holds property to which the plaintiff has title does not meet [the] requirement [that it must also appear that the action to be restrained or directed is not action of the sovereign]. True, it establishes a wrong to the plaintiff. But it does not establish that the officer, in committing that wrong, is not exercising the powers delegated to him by the sovereign. And, the Court added: the action of an officer of the sovereign (be it holding, taking or otherwise legally affecting the plaintiff's property) can be regarded as so `illegal' as to permit a suit for specific relief against the officer as an individual only if it is not within the officer's statutory powers or, if within those powers, only if the powers, or their exercise in the particular case, are constitutionally void. Id., at 701-702. Since the Government, through its officers here, had the power, under authorization of Congress, to seize the property of the respondents, as held by the Court of Appeals and recognized by several cases in this Court, and this power of seizure was constitutionally permissible, as we held in Ivanhoe, supra, there can be no question that this case comes under the rule of Larson and Malone, supra . The power to seize which was granted here had no limitation placed upon it by the Congress, nor did the Court of Appeals bottom its conclusion on a finding of any limitation. Having plenary power to seize the whole of respondents' rights in carrying out the congressional mandate, the federal officers a fortiori had authority to seize less. It follows that if any part of respondents' claimed water rights were invaded it amounted to an interference therewith and a taking thereofnot a trespass. We find no substance to the contention that respondents were without knowledge of the interference or partial taking. Nor can we accept the view that the absence of specificity as to the amount of water to be taken prevents the assessment of damages in this case. From the very beginning it was recognized that the operation of Friant Dam and its facilities would entail a taking of water rights below the dam. Indeed, it was obvious from the expressed purpose of the construction of the damto store and divert to other areas the waters of the San Joaquinand the intention of the Government to purchase water rights along the river. [6] Pursuant to this announced intention the Government did in fact enter into numerous contracts for water rights, as we have previously noted. While it is true, as the Court of Appeals observed, that the Government did not announce that it was taking water rights to a specified number of gallons or, for that matter, inches of water, see 293 F. 2d 340, 357-358, we do not think this quantitative uncertainty precludes ascertainment of the value of the taking. On this point we conclude that the Court of Appeals was in error. We find no uncertainty in the taking. It is likely that an element of uncertainty may have been drawn by the Court of Appeals from the Secretary of the Interior's statement in a letter that the operation of Friant Dam is an administrative one, voluntarily assumed and voluntarily to be executed. 293 F. 2d 340, 356, n. 8. This alone might present a picture of a spillway being opened and closed at the whim of the Secretary. We view this statement, however, as merely notice to the court that the Secretary intended to operate the water works fairly, but solely on his own, without court interference. Neither he nor the United States was a party. Even if the statement did introduce an element of uncertainty as to what exactly the Secretary might do, injunctive relief was not proper. Despite this caveat, damages were clearly ascertainable (see Collier v. Merced Irrigation District, 213 Cal. 554, 571-572, 2 P. 2d 790, 797 (1931)), based partially on the Secretary's prior unequivocal statement regarding his plans as to the minimum flow of water to be released into the river below the dam. [7] Parenthetically, we note that petitioners, in their brief, at p. 12, inform us that Friant Dam has since been operated in accordance with the Secretary's stated plan, subject to adjustments required by weather and other conditions. Damages in this instance are to be measured by the difference in market value of the respondents' land before and after the interference or partial taking. As the Supreme Court of California said in Collier v. Merced Irrigation District, supra, at 571-572. . . . [T]he riparian right is a part and parcel of the land in a legal sense, yet it is a usufructuary and intangible right inhering therein and neither a partial nor a complete taking produces a disfigurement of the physical property. The only way to measure the injury done by an invasion of this right is to ascertain the depreciation in market value of the physical property. . . . There was a distinct conflict in the evidence as to whether the lands of appellant had a greater or a less market value after the taking by respondent, but there is no question of law arising on the evidence. The right claimed here is to the continued flow of water in the San Joaquin and to its use as it flows along the landowner's property. A seizure of water rights need not necessarily be a physical invasion of land. It may occur upstream, as here. Interference with or partial taking of water rights in the manner it was accomplished here might be analogized to interference or partial taking of air space over land, such as in our recent case of Griggs v. Allegheny County, 369 U. S. 84, 89-90 (1962). See United States v. Causby, 328 U. S. 256, 261-263, 267 (1946); Portsmouth Co. v. United States, 260 U. S. 327, 329 (1922). See also 1 Wiel, Water Rights in the Western States (3d ed. 1911), § 15; 2 Nichols, Eminent Domain (3d ed. 1950), § 6.3. Therefore, when the Government acted here with the purpose and effect of subordinating the respondents' water rights to the Project's uses whenever it saw fit, with the result of depriving the owner of its profitable use [there was] the imposition of such a servitude [as] would constitute an appropriation of property for which compensation should be made. Peabody v. United States, 231 U. S. 530, 538 (1913); Portsmouth Co. v. United States, supra, at 329. In an appropriate proceeding there would be a determination of not only the extent of such a servitude but the value thereof based upon the difference between the value of respondents' property before and after the taking. Rather than a stoppage of the government project, this is the avenue of redress open to respondents. Since we have set aside the judgments of both the Court of Appeals and the District Court, it is appropriate that we make clear that we do not in any way pass upon or indicate any view regarding the validity of respondents' water right claims.