Simpson v. Board of Supervisors

186 Iowa 1034
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedMarch 18, 1919
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 186 Iowa 1034 (Simpson v. Board of Supervisors) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Simpson v. Board of Supervisors, 186 Iowa 1034 (iowa 1919).

Opinion

Weaver, J.

A reading of the essential facts, which are the subject of little or no dispute, amply demonstrates the lack of essential merit in the plaintiff’s appeal. There is no attack made upon the regularity or validity of the original proceedings by which the district was established.

[1038]*10381- :estab' íiuídowner. of [1037]*1037Incidentally, it appears that the district is a large one, including parts of two counties; that about three fourths of the work of the dredging has been completed, at a large [1038]*1038expense to the district, and as the dredge worked from the upper terminal of the ditch toward the outlet, the arrest of its operation a mile or more from the outlet naturally serves, in a large degree, to deprive the district of the drainage for which it has paid.

Under such circumstances, it is but just to say to the individual landowner who asks the court to aid him in the stopping of the progress of an important enterprise which the law recognizes as being calculated to promote the public good, and the burden of which the entire district has voluntarily assumed, that such relief will be granted him only upon a clear and satisfactory showing of his right to demand it. Such showing is here obviously lacking.

2‘ taMishment • oiPinguirj\pe As is quite usual in cases of this class, counsel for the appellant overlooked the rule that this court will consider no objections to the order' of the board of supervisors except ,such as were raised by the appellant before the board itself, and have argued some propositions upon which we cannot undertake to f>ass. Confining our discussions to the questions properly before us, they are as follows:

3. eminbni no-main : proceedings to taire: additional right of way for drainage ditch : notice. I. The objection is made in various forms that the order for obtaining or condemning an additional width of a right of way is without authority and void, because notice of such action was not given to all the landowners within the drainage district.

, , „ ,, The enlargement of the right of way and the modification of the course of the ditch involved the taking of no land except from tracts owned by the plaintiff, by Luding and Studer, and by Murtagh and Schumacher. Each of these persons were, in fact, notified, and appeared in the proceedings, and, upon overruling of the plaintiff’s objec[1039]*1039tions, Ms damages • were appraised and allowed. The adequacy of the allowance is not questioned, and it must be assumed that the amount so awardedjum is fairly compensatory. The statutory proceeding for assessing his damages is due process of law, and we can conceive no good reason why the result so reached should be avoided because some other person or persons, neither having nor claiming any right or interest in his property, were given no notice of it. If a board of supervisors attempts to condemn a highway across a half dozen separately owned town lots, each owner may be entitled to notice in some form, before his land is taken from him; but if he is properly notified, he cannot resist the condemnation on the plea that one or more of the other owners, similarly affected, have not -received like notice. Other owners may be disposed to waive the objection on their part, or the party seeking the condemnation may cure the defect by any other means known to the law; but, however that may be, the objection, if any may be raised by persons not notified, is not available to him who is. If it be true, as counsel seems to think, that the proceedings to which the,appellant objects may result in some increase in the taxes against the land of the district, and that notice is, therefore, necessary to their validity, then the utmost effect of the failure to notify would be the invalidation of the tax as against those property owners whose rights have thus been disregarded. But no such question can arise in this case. No landowner or taxpayer is here pleading any want of notice to him, and what his rights may be if he does some time make that objection is an inquiry answer to which can be postponed until he asks it.

It is also to be said that the engineer’s report recommending the order to which the appellant objects, is to the effect that the changes and modifications therein proposed will add nothing to the cost or expense of the ditch as originally designed. This conclusion has substantial support in [1040]*1040the facts and figures, so far as they are revealed in the record; or, to say the very least, their substantial correctness is not clearly impeached or disproved. The objection to the decree below, baseu^fn the failure to serve proper notice of the proceeding complained of, is not well taken.

4. Drairs : right of way : enlargement : slight change in location: not new improvement. II. Of the same nature is the objection that the proceeding is for a new or independent improvement, distinct from the one contemplated in the establishment of the joint district. This view is so clearly erroneous that the error is apparent upon its mere mention. It is perhaps humanly impossible to prepare and carry out a plan for a work of this character and magnitude with such comprehensive foresight or perfect skill that, at some point in its execution, some modification or readjustment of a mere matter of detail does not become necessary; and, while sound public policy will demand that officers and contractors to whom its authorization and performance are committed shall keep within the limits which the law imposes upon them, the rules which govern then-conduct are not to be so unreasonably construed as to defeat the very purpose which the law is intended to serve. If, for example, in the case at bar it was found, when the work of excavating the ditch was largely done, that a right of way of more than 85 feet for the remaining distance was necessary to its completion, it would disclose a very grave defect in the law if the proceedings for the removal of this obstacle were necessarily to be treated as an original proceeding for the establishment of an individual drainage district. There is no express provision of the statute to this effect, and there is nothing in the proved facts of this case to suggest its propriety.

The enlargement of the right of way is, at most, a matter of detail in the construction of the ditch authorized in the original establishment of the district, while the modifi[1041]*1041cation in the course of the ditch across the Murtagh-Schumacher quarter section of land is, in no sense, a new or independent enterprise.

This slight change in location is wholly within the district as originally established, and wholly upon the land of a single owner, who not only consents thereto, but voluntarily waives his right to the damages assessed in his favor because of the original location. It is not shown to affeei or interfere with the drainage of the plaintiff’s land in the slightest degree, or to increase the burden which his land must bear.

5. drains : change in outlet: remoteness of prospective litigation. The counsel argues the possibility that the change in the place of outlet may give rise to drainage claims by owners of the land outside of the district, and to possibilities of expensive litigation; but there is nothing in this record to indicate that the proceedings of which the appellant complains do, in x x x

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186 Iowa 1034, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/simpson-v-board-of-supervisors-iowa-1919.