Opinion ID: 1427784
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the erroneous interpretation of burt

Text: Basically the task undertaken by the Circuit Court of Appeals is not to divine the answer to the three certified questions which it has referred to this Court, and which this Court has answered by three successive negatives, no, no, no. The panel has sought assistance from this Court in order to ascertain whether the United States District Court, the Honorable Marion Callister, committed error sua sponte, in taking away from the jury the issue squarely presented to the panel: Whether the United States District Court erred in its conclusion that Burt v. Farmers Cooperative Irrigation Co., Ltd., 30 Idaho 752, 168 P. 1078 (1917),  specifically rejected the strict liability doctrine set out in Fletcher v. Rylands, L.R. 2, Exch. 265. Memorandum Decision of Judge Callister at 3. The district court made that strong statement of rejection of Fletcher v. Rylands, notwithstanding that it did so in the face of its own acknowledgment of this exact language from Burt: Under the common law one who diverted water from its natural course did so at his peril, and was held practically to be an insurer against damage which might result from such action. The common law has been modified and relaxed in this and other arid states, so that the owner of an irrigation ditch is only liable for damages occurring to others as a result of his negligence or unskillfulness in constructing, maintaining or operating the ditch. (Citations Omitted). Memorandum Decision of Judge Callister at 3, quoting Burt, 30 Idaho at 767, 168 P. at 1082. [4] Unfortunately, Judge Callister failed generally in his reading of Burt, and particularly in the paragraph quoted. The Burt court did not reject the common law doctrine of Fletcher v. Rylands, i.e., strict liability for damages occasioned by the escape of artificially impounded waters. The Burt court was aware of Fletcher v. Rylands, which it cited to, as L.R. 1 Exch. 265, affirmed, L.R. 3 H.L. 330; 1 Eng.Rul. Cas. 236. The citation continued on by citing for the same proposition three cases from Massachusetts and one case from New York. [5] The extent of the Burt quotation is set out in two sentences. The first sentence concerning the common law is sound, and is indeed supported by its citations. This was all a matter of elementary learning in first year law school torts. The second sentence is equally sound, provided, however, that the reader comprehend that it has absolutely no application to the preceding sentence, but rather is confined to the liability of one who constructs, maintains, and operates a ditch. A ditch is a ditch, and in Idaho law we deal with drainage ditches and with irrigation ditches as artificial structures which are by no means entitled to the same status as is accorded to natural water courses. All that the Burt court was saying at that point in its discussion was that the common law of Idaho would not accord to non-natural water courses the status which the common law in England, and the common law developed by that time in Massachusetts and New York, accorded to natural water courses, including natural water sources impounded into reservoirs. 30 Idaho at 567, 168 P. at 1082-83. While it is readily understood that one judge, Judge Callister, was led astray by his own misreading of Burt, it is not understood how four Idaho jurists could in turn so readily subscribe to Judge Callister's view that Burt specifically rejected the strict liability doctrine set out in Fletcher v. Rylands.  The ready answer is simply the failure to do at least a modicum of homework. The reader of Judge Callister's memorandum decision, and in turn today's opinion for the Idaho Supreme Court, is left with the clear impression that Burt's statement implies that the common law has been relaxed by judicial determination, that the concern in Burt was predicated upon a land owner's suit against the owner (or constructor, or maintainor) of an irrigation ditch, and that the issue there was whether an injured and monetarily damaged land owner could recover on a strict liability theory as well as on a negligence theory. The actual fact of the matter is miles apart from the impression created. While I am not privy to Judge McNichols analysis of Burt (in Kunz I ), it is strong in my mind that he was aware of what the Burt case was all about. Burt was not a damage action, and in that respect alone it should have played no part in Judge Callister's order in Kunz II which deprived the landowners of their clear right to proceed against Utah Power on the theory of strict liability. Additionally, the language in Burt relative to modification of the common law had nothing to do with any judicial action. It did have to do with legislative action. As is often the case, the reading of the full caption of a reported case may be helpful: C.G. BURT, W.W. NUSBAUM and F.G. PICKETT, Commissioners of Drainage District No. 1 of Canyon County, Appellants, v. FARMERS' CO-OPERATIVE IRRIGATION COMPANY, LIMITED, and NOBLE DITCH COMPANY, LIMITED, Respondents. 30 Idaho 752, 168 P. 1078 (1917). In the year 1913, the legislature authorized the creation of drainage districts. 1913 Sess. Laws, ch. 16, p. 58. The plaintiff in Burt, Drainage District No. 1, Canyon County, was created in accordance with the statute, and its domain established. The trial court's pertinent findings and conclusions are set out in the reported case. Included therein are provisions of the enabling legislation. Of specific pertinence is Section 9, which provides that the Commissioners shall report and determine, [f]ourth: What lands will be injured [by the construction of a drainage system] and the aggregate amount of such injuries, and they shall award to each tract, or lot, by whomsoever held, the amount of damage so determined by them. In a similar vein, the fifth paragraph of Section 9 made provision for the determination of the benefits which would arise from the construction, and provided that the commissioners of the district should apportion and assess the estimated costs of the same on the lands so benefitted..., all of which is more fully set out in the reported case, 30 Idaho at 761-62, 168 P. at 1080-81. Section 9a was added to the Act in 1915, prior to the litigation, judgment and appeal in Burt. It provided: In determining the amount which each tract of land will be benefited by such proposed drainage system the commissioners shall consider the damage done to low land from seepage and saturation by irrigation water from high land and the necessity for the carrying off of waste water, and such high lands shall be considered as being benefited to the extent and in the amount that such lands are responsible for damage to low lands from seepage and saturation by irrigation water. 1915 Sess.Laws, ch. 42, p. 123-25; 30 Idaho at 763, 168 P. at 1081 (emphasis added). At that point the court noted that, although the legislative power had not been directly called in question, precedential case law from the Supreme Court of the United States was dispositive, discussing the same on pages 763 through 765. At page 765, the Burt court declared that, [t]he object sought to be accomplished by the addition of Section 9a is not difficult to determine. We quote from the opinion of Mr. Chief Justice Sullivan in the former appeal (29 Idaho [377] 393, 161 P. [315] 320 (1916), as follows: It seems in this irrigated country the question of drainage is now confronting almost every irrigated section, and there seem very cogent reasons for a return to the former rule above stated (referring to the common-law rule hereafter stated), at least to the extent of assessing lands for the construction of a drainage system from which seepage or percolation damages or injures other lands. The early settlers of the arid regions were not confronted with the question of drainage, but time and experience have proven that a drainage system is absolutely necessary where large areas of desert land are reclaimed by irrigation. 30 Idaho at 765-66, 168 P. at 1082. The Burt court went on to explain the 1915 amendment: By section 9a it is provided that such high land shall be considered as being `benefited' to the extent and in the amount such lands are responsible for damages to low lands from seepage and saturation by irrigation water. We have no doubt of the power of the legislature to provide that lands which by reason of artificial irrigation contribute by seepage and saturation to the swampy condition of lower lands shall contribute their just proportion of the cost of the construction of drainage works for the reclamation of such lower lands. This court has held that an irrigation district may construct drainage works as a necessary complement of its irrigation system. [Citations omitted.] 30 Idaho at 766-67, 168 P. at 1082 (emphasis added). It was against that backdrop that the Burt court continued on with the statement that [u]nder the common law one who diverted water from its natural course did so at his peril, and was held practically to be an insurer against damage which might result from such action. ( Fletcher v. Rylands, L.R. 1 Exch. 265, affirmed L.R. 3 H.L. 330; 1 Eng.Rul.Cas. 236)... . 30 Idaho at 767, 168 P. at 1082. On a proper viewing of the Burt opinion, it is readily seen that the real issue at stake was the questioned authority of a drainage district to obtain monetary payments from the two named defendants through assessments levied because of benefits conferred. The defendants in their argument likened the assessments to damages masquerading under a different guise, and hence contended that they were unjustly treated because they were not proven to be guilty of any negligence. The court's holding in response to that argument was very simply stated: No reason is apparent why the legislature may not restore the common-law rule in part or for some purposes only, as it undertook to do in section 9a.  30 Idaho at 768, 168 P. at 1083 (emphasis added). Conversely put, the legislature can restore the common-law rule in part, and here it did so in enacting section 9a. The Burt case went on to use a police power analogy in explaining that section 9a was valid: Nor must the legislation be held invalid because the legislature in terms provided for the enforcement of a liability as though it were a special benefit to the lands assessed, although the ground for the liability may be found in the police power of the state. ( Donnelly v. Decker, 58 Wis. 461, 46 Am.Rep. 637, 17 N.W. 389.) The legislature having power to provide for the levy of the assessment, the legislation must be upheld, even though in providing for the execution of the power the legislature may have confused the principles upon which the assessment was to be based, and may have provided in the same act for the levy of assessments on the basis of benefits received and responsibility for injuries inflicted. 30 Idaho at 768, 168 P. at 1083. Earlier on the same page the court had stated the reasoning which supported its police power rationale as a means of effecting assessments on land for benefit conferred: The practical effect of requiring assessments to be made against the tract of land as a benefit, instead of creating a personal liability of the owner thereof, is to relieve the owner of the tract from any personal liability. By a proper exercise of the police power of the state the owner of land might be held personally liable for any damage which results from his action in bringing water upon his land by artificial means. If the legislature chose to provide for such liability only in connection with drainage districts and to limit assessments to the lands only and relieve the owners from personal liability, the owners cannot be heard to complain. 30 Idaho at 768, 168 P. at 1083. The holding of Burt is inescapable. The general discussion of the relaxation of the common law as applied to ditches is simply dicta. It served only the purpose of leading into the court's conclusion that where assessments for benefits conferred by the construction of a drainage system are concerned, the 1915 amendment reinstated the common law rule that lack of negligence was not a justifiable reason for refusing to pay the assessment.