76 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



the amended complaint were ample to invoke the 

 jurisdiction of the court below to determine the 

 question whether or not the defendants were au- 

 thorized by law to collect the charges it was al- 

 leged they demanded and whether or not they were 

 authorized by law to destroy the water rights and 

 homestead rights for the failure of their owners to 

 pay these charges. 



Another objection to the complaint is that it 

 evidences a cause of action against the United 

 States. This contention is presented in numerous 

 forms, such as that the defendants are the officers 

 of the United States, and their acts are the acts of 

 the United States, that an injunction against their 

 acts would constitute an interference with the use 

 and possession of the property of the United States, 

 the water of its reservoir, and would compel specific 

 performance of its contracts. If the acts of the de- 

 fendants done and threatened were authorized by 

 law they might be the acts of the United States 

 against which a court of equity would grant no re- 

 lief. But if the averments of the complaint are 

 true, and in deciding the question now under con- 

 sideration they must be assumed to be so, these 

 acts are unauthorized by and contrary to law. They 

 are, therefore, not the acts of the United States and 

 a suit to enjoin their performance is not a suit 

 against the United States, or a suit to interfere 

 with its property, or a suit to compel specific per- 

 formance of its contracts. It is a suit to enjoin 

 officers of the United States from unlawfully inter- 

 fering with and diverting its water from those per- 

 sons lawfully receiving and entitled to receive it, 

 from unlawfully preventing the United States from 

 discharging its duties and performing its contracts 

 to the irreparable injury of the plaintiff and its 

 shareholders. That an executive officer is commit- 

 ting or about to commit acts unauthorized by or in 

 violation of law to the irreparable injury of the 

 property rights of the plaintiff is a good cause of 

 action against such officer for injunctive relief. A 

 suit against him for such a cause is neither a suit 

 against the United States nor is it or the injunction 

 against such acts of the officer objectionable either 

 on the ground that it interferes with the property 

 of the United States, or its possession, or compels 

 the specific performance of its contracts by the lat- 

 ter. American School of Magnetic Healing v. Mc- 

 Annulty, 187 U. S. 94, 110, 111; Philadelphia Co. v. 

 Stimson, 223 U. S. 605, 619, 620; Garfield v. 

 Goldsby, 211 U. S. 249, 261; Pennoyer v. McCon- 

 naughy, 140 U. S. 10, 12, 17; Baker v. Swigart, 196 

 Fed. 569, 571 ; 199 Fed. 865, 866 ; Swigart v. Baker, 

 229 U. S. 187, 192; United States v. Cantrell, 176 

 Fed. 949, 954. 



The only other objections to the complaint are 

 that it fails to show that the plaintiff or its share- 

 holders will suffer irreparable injury from the un- 

 authorized and illegal acts of the defendants and 

 that it does disclose the fact that they have an 

 adequate remedy at law. The remedy at law which 

 counsel assert the plaintiff and its shareholders 

 have consists of actions at law against the United 

 States for the damages they have sustained by their 

 deprivation of water and by the cancellation of the 

 water rights and homestead rights of the share- 

 holders because they failed to pay the illegal 



charges. But the remedy at law which precludes 

 relief in equity must be as prompt, efficient, and 

 adequate as the remedy in equity. To determine 

 the amounts of the unauthorized charges for opera- 

 tion and maintenance may and probably will re- 

 quire the examination of the accounts of the re- 

 ceipts and disbursements on account of the entire 

 project. To determine the amounts, if any, owing 

 by the shareholders may and probably will require 

 the examination of the accounts between each of 

 the complaining shareholders and the project. The 

 consideration and settlement of issues dependent 

 upon the taking of accounts composed of many 

 items is one of the great heads of equity jurispru- 

 dence and the probable necessity for such an ac- 

 counting is in itself sufficient to sustain the juris- 

 diction of this suit by a court of chancery. Castle 

 Creek Water Co. v. City of Aspen, 146 Fed. 8 13. 

 14, 76 C. C. A. 516, 521, 522. Nor is the remedy 

 of an action, or several actions at law for damages 

 that will be sustained by the infliction of the wrongs 

 alleged on account of the collection of the unlawful 

 charges, or the destruction of the homestead rights 

 and water rights for a failure to pay them as 

 prompt, or as efficient, or as adequate, as the pre- 

 vention by this suit in equity of the collection of 

 the unjust charges and the enforcement of the 

 illegal forfeitures, and the adjudication in this single 

 suit of the legal rights and duties of all the parties 

 and all the shareholders by a court of equity which, 

 with its power to apply to the questions at issue 

 the learning and experience of its chancellor and of 

 a trained accountant as a master, is so much better 

 equipped than a jury to find and render a just de- 

 cree upon such issues. The plaintiff and the share- 

 holders have no adequate remedy at law for the 

 wrongs charged in this complaint. 



Do the averments of the complaint set forth 

 facts which show an imminent danger ' of irrepa- 

 rable injury to the plaintiff and its shareholders 

 from the acts of the defendants? Those averments 

 disclose these facts : The shareholders of the plain- 

 tiff are farmers each with a small number of domes- 

 tic animals, with modest homes and limited means 

 trying to cultivate arid lands which they have been 

 induced to occupy by the representations of the 

 defendants that they would be supplied with water 

 from the project to raise crops upon these lands. 

 The United States made a contract with the plain- 

 tiff and with many of these shareholders, with all 

 of them who applied for water rights before 1911, 

 that water would be supplied to them in considera- 

 tion of their agreements to pay for the construc- 

 tion of the works after their completion, and to pay 

 their just share of necessary operation and mainte- 

 nance charges. The defendants have demanded 

 and collected construction charges not due, opera- 

 tion and maintenance charges unnecessary and un- 

 authorized, and have failed to furnish the requisite 

 water to enable these farmers to raise crops for 

 several years until some of them are financially 

 exhausted and cannot pay many of the charges, 

 and for their failure so to do the defendants 

 threaten to deprive them of the use of the water 

 and to take steps to destroy their water rights and 

 their homestead rights. The plaintiff, the associa- 

 (Continued on page 88) 



