Tingwall v. King Hill Irrigation District

155 P.2d 605, 66 Idaho 76, 1945 Ida. LEXIS 116
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 24, 1945
DocketNo. 7156.
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 155 P.2d 605 (Tingwall v. King Hill Irrigation District) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tingwall v. King Hill Irrigation District, 155 P.2d 605, 66 Idaho 76, 1945 Ida. LEXIS 116 (Idaho 1945).

Opinion

*79 BUDGE, J.

In the years 1920 and 1921 appellant, King Hill Irrigation District, issued certain warrants for labor and other services in connection with the maintenance and operation of its irrigation system, which were acquired by the Tingwall Stores Company. Thereafter on April 13, 1926, Tingwall Stores Company filed a suit in the district court of Elmore county to recover a judgment on said warrants. May 13, 1926, judgment against the King Hill Irrigation District on the warrants was entered. Sometime after the rendition of the judgment, A. W. Tingwall, respondent, became the owner of said judgment, and on September 12, 1932, obtained a judgment in the district court of Elmore county in renewal of the judgment of May 13, 1926. August 24, 1938, A. W. Tingwall filed the present action to renew the judgment of September 12, 1932.

No defenses were interposed to the taking of the first or second judgments. In the present action to renew the second judgment appellant interposed certain defenses, hereinafter referred to.

The trial court held that all defenses interposed were without merit, entered a renewal judgment on May 8, 1943, from which judgment this appeal is prosecuted.

It is not controverted that appellant is an irrigation district organized under the laws of this state, and owns and operates an irrigation system. It is well settled in this jurisdiction that an irrigation district is not, strictly speaking, a municipal corporation, but a quasi-municipal corporation operating its irrigation system in a proprietary capacity, and such municipal powers as it may have are only secondary or incidental. (Lewiston Orchards Irr. Dist. v. Gilmore, 53 Ida. 377, 23 P. (2d) 720; Eldridge v. Black Canyon Irr. Dist., 55 Ida. 443, 43 P. (2d) 1052; Sudler, Wegener & Co. v. Hillsdale Irr. Dist., 63 Ida. 546, 123 P. (2d) 420; Tingwall & Duffy v. King Hill Irr. Dist., 64 Ida. 207, 129 P. (2d) 898.)

*80 In American Falls Reservoir Dist. v. Thrall, 39 Ida. 105, 228 P. 236, it was held that assessments levied against, land in an irrigation district constituted a general obligation of the district.

It is urged by appellant that no action for money judgment was ever maintainable on the warrants issued in 1920 and 1921, and acquired by respondent, that the only remedy at any time available to the warrant-holder was a proceeding for writ of mandate against the proper officers of the district to compel levies for the payment of such warrants.

. In our opinion the above contention cannot be sustained.

The warrants here in question were general obligations of the appellant Irrigation District. (American Falls Reservoir Dist. v. Thrall, supra.) The holder of the warrants had two remedies, first, an action at law against the corporation to reduce the warrants to a money judgment or, second, mandamus against the fiscal officers of the irrigation district to compel a levy against all the land within the district to satisfy the warrants. (44 C.J. p. 1175, sec. 4137; Walnut Township v. Jordan (Kan.), 16 P. 812; Travelers’ Ins. Co. v. Denver (Colo.), 18 P. 556; Goldsmith v. Baker City (Ore.), 49 P. 973; Frankl v. Bailey (Ore.), 50 P. 186; Smith v. Polk County (Ore.), 112 P. 715; Cleveland Nat’l Bank v. Bd. of Education (Okla.), 179 P. 464; Farwell v. San Jacinto Etc. Irr. Dist. (Cal.), 192 P. 1034; People v. Honey Lake Valley Irr. Dist. (Cal.), 246 P. 819; Heffleman v. Pennington County (S.D.), 52 N.W.851; Mills County Nat. Bank v. Mills County (Ia.), 25 N.W. 884; Grand Lodge v. City of Bottineau (N.D.), 227 N.W. 363; Council Bluffs Sav. Bank v. Pottawattamie (Ia.), 250 N.W. 233; Western Surety Co. v. Mellette County (S.D.), 257 N.W. 461; Wittbold & Co. v. City of Chicago Heights (Ill.), 13 N.E. (2d) 825; International Bank of St. Louis v. Franklin County (Mo.), 27 Am. Rep. 261.)

A defense that one’s sole remedy on unpaid municipal bonds is mandamus to compel an assessment comes too late after the bonds have been placed in judgment. (Hammond v. Place (Mich.), 74 N.W. 1002.)

Having reached the conclusion that an action at law against the irrigation district was one of the two rem *81 edies available to respondent; that said remedy was pursued and judgment duly and regularly entered, and not paid, there was but one method available to respondent in order to keep said judgment alive and toll the statutes of limitations, and that was an action to renew the judgment. (Bashor v. Beloit, 20 Ida. 592, 119 P. 55; Atkinson v. Adkins (Cal.), 268 P. 461.) Statute of limitations runs against warrants issued by an irrigation district both in an action to place the warrants in judgment or in a mandamus proceeding. (Little v. Emmett Irr. District, 45 Ida. 485, 263 P. 40.)

Upon the trial to defeat respondent’s right to have the judgment of 1932 renewed, appellant offered in evidence the judgment roll in the original action, wherein it appears that judgment was entered May 13, 1926, in favor of the Tingwall Stores Company, the renewal judgment of September 12, 1932, and the judgment roll in a mandamus proceeding brought by the respondent against appellant to compel a levy of taxes sufficient to pay the judgment. Appellant also offered the minutes of the board of directors of the irrigation district, dated August 18, 1936, showing levies in that year to pay the judgment, and the minutes of August 17, 1937, showing the levies made in that year to pay on the judgment. Furthermore, appellant offered to prove that at the time the warrants were acquired by Ting-wall Stores Company and at the time action was instituted by said company on the warrants, that A, W, Tingwall (respondent) was president and managing agent of the Tingwall Stores Company; that one Charles Stout was the secretary and attorney for the district; that Stout was employed by, and represented, the Tingwall Stores Company in the action against the district on the warrants, and obtained the 1926 judgment against appellant. Appellant further offered to prove that the warrants issued, and herein involved, were in excess of the revenues of the district in the years in which they were issued. It was stipulated that certain payments were made on the judgment by reason of the levies made in the mandate proceedings.

Th trial court sustained objections to all appellant’s offers of proof, except the judgment rolls in the initial action, and the first renewal thereof, upon the ground that they were incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial, and par *82 ticularly upon the ground that they constituted a collateral attack upon the judgment.

We think the rule is well settled as stated in Milwaukee County v. White Co., 296 U.S. 268, that:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
155 P.2d 605, 66 Idaho 76, 1945 Ida. LEXIS 116, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tingwall-v-king-hill-irrigation-district-idaho-1945.