Court Opinion

ID: 86884
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-28 16:00:52+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:29.443029
License: Public Domain

57 U.S. 513 (____)
16 How. 513
JAMES IRWIN, APPELLANT,
v.
THE UNITED STATES.
Supreme Court of United States.

*518 It was argued by Mr. Wylie and Mr. Ritchie, upon a brief prepared by Mr. Irwin, for the appellant, and by Mr. Cushing, (Attorney-General,) for the United States.
*522 Mr. Justice GRIER delivered the opinion of the court.
The appellant, James Irwin, was respondent below to a bill filed by the United States, in the nature of a bill "quia timet," in which Irwin was charged with threatening to cut off certain pipes conveying water to the United States Arsenal, near Pittsburg. The whole merits of the case are involved in the construction to be put on a certain deed under which the United States claimed to have a right to "one half of the water" delivered from a certain spring or reservoir. The parties both claim under William F. Hamilton and W.V. Robinson, who conveyed to the United States "the right and privilege to use, divert, and carry away from the fountain spring, &c., by which the woollen factory of grantors is now supplied, so much water as will pass through a pipe or tube of equal diameter, with one that shall convey the water from the said spring, upon the same level therewith to the factory of said grantors, and to proceed from a common cistern or head to be erected by the said United States, and to convey and conduct the same through the premises of the said grantors, &c."
This grant to the United States was made in November, 1836, for the consideration of $2,500. Without stating, in so many words, that the water from the common cistern is to be divided equally, or each to have one half, this deed points out a mode of equal distribution at the cistern. The water is to be delivered to each by a pipe or tube of equal diameter at the same level. The mode of conducting it by either party to the place of its use is not prescribed. Each might have had his share delivered into a tank or cistern of his own placed along side of the common cistern, which would have been probably the best plan. The United States were permitted to conduct their share of the water through the lands of the grantors "by *523 tubes or pipes" without any restriction as to the size of them. The distance from the common cistern to the arsenal of the United States, where their share of the water was to be conducted, is four times as great as that to the grantors' premises. Owing to friction, and other causes, explained by the witnesses, it was proved that the flow of water in equal tubes is in the inverse ratio of the squares of the distances. Hence an orifice or tube capable of receiving and passing equal quantities at the fountain-head, if continued of the same size to the place of delivery, would have distributed to the United States about one sixteenth and to the vendors fifteen sixteenths. In fact, from the unevenness of the ground over which the water must necessarily flow to the arsenal, and the quantity of deposit made in its course, such a construction of the contract would leave the United States very frequently, if not always, without any water at all.
The grantors in the deed had no intention of overreaching the grantees, by taking advantage of their want of knowledge of the science of hydraulics, or claiming a construction of their deed which would give their grantees nothing, and thus allow the grantors to again extort from the necessities of the government a double price.
Robinson, one of the grantors, was examined by the appellant as a witness, and swore that one half the water was sold, and one half reserved, "that such was the agreement." This was the practical (and only reasonable) construction put on the grant by both parties at the time it was made; and, accordingly the officers of the United States proceeded to make a common cistern, and to ascertain the size of two tubes sufficient to convey the whole water held in common, and distribute it equally  leaving the vendors to convey their share in pipes of any size they saw fit, they used pipes to convey the water to the arsenal of such size as was deemed necessary from the distance and nature of the ground. The vendors looked on, assisted and acquiesced in all that was done. If the deed were ambiguous, and capable of a construction, which would permit one party to overreach and defraud the other; if there were no such rule of law as that which gives a construction to a deed most favorable to the grantee; yet we have here a practical construction by the vendor and vendee made on the ground, and acquiesced in for sixteen years. The appellant's deed from an assignee of the original vendors, carefully refers to this sale to the United States, as a sale "of one half of the water." We are of opinion, therefore, that a reasonable construction of the deed to the United States, having reference to the principles of hydraulics, necessarily requires that each party should have half the water, and conduct it in such pipes as they see fit and proper: and *524 also, that assuming the deed to be capable of the construction contended for, the parties to it have construed it honestly and correctly; and that this practical construction having been acquiesced in by all parties interested for sixteen years, is conclusive. The appellant, whose deed purports to convey to him but one half the water, cannot now claim to put a new construction on the grant to the appellees which would give them nothing for the large consideration paid, and the appellant all for nothing. However plausible and astute the reasoning may be, on which such a claim is founded, it does not recommend itself on the ground of justice or equity.
The judgment of the Circuit Court is therefore affirmed, with costs.

Order.
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Western District of Pennsylvania, and was argued by counsel. On consideration whereof, it is now here ordered, adjudged, and decreed by this court, that the decree of the said Circuit Court, in this cause, be, and the same is hereby affirmed.