Under the laws of Colorado here applicable, as construed by her
highest court, a suit by a claimant of a water right in one water
district to contest a water priority defined by a general
adjudication in another is barred if not brought within four years
from the rendition of the decree.
A state law which provides for a public adjudication of property
rights in a given subject matter and declares that even persons who
are not entitled to be heard in the proceeding shall ultimately be
bound does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment
quoad such
persons if it allows them an adequate opportunity, including a
reasonable time, to assert their rights in other judicial
proceedings.
A judicial construction of a statute, supportable by frank
reasoning and not subversive of any earlier judicial construction
upon which a party might be held to have relied, does not deprive
him of due process though it take him by surprise and come too late
for him to act upon it, and thus save his rights.
A departure by state decision from a rule of property
established by earlier state decisions may not be relied on,
without more, as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Sauer
v. New York, 206 U. S. 536;
Chicago & Alton R. Co. v. Tranbarger, 238 U. S.
67.
56 Colo. 545 affirmed.
The case is stated in the opinion.
Page 242 U. S. 24
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the court.
This is a complaint brought by the plaintiff in error to quiet
his title to alleged water rights on Tarryall Creek, a tributary of
the South Platte River, and to enjoin the defendant Irrigation
Company and the state officials from closing the plaintiff's ditch
under an assertion of the Irrigation Company's superior right. The
defendants justified under a decree establishing the Irrigation
Company's priority and a statute making the decree conclusive after
four years. The plaintiff replied and argued that the statutes, if
construed to have the alleged effect, took his property without due
process of law, contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment. The
defendants demurred, and the state courts upheld the defense. 56
Colo. 545.
The case is this: in 1879, the state established water
districts, the plaintiff's water rights being in District 23 and
the defendant's in District 8, directly below 23, upon the South
Platte. Jurisdiction was conferred upon the district courts for the
proper county to adjudicate all questions concerning priority of
appropriation and other questions of right between "owners of
ditches drawing
Page 242 U. S. 25
water for irrigation purposes from the same stream or its
tributaries within the same water district." Laws of 1879, Feb.19,
§ 19, p. 99. Rev.Stats. 1908, § 3276. The provisions were enlarged
by an Act of February 23, 1881, p. 142, but still seemingly
confined to controversies between parties in the same district,
until they came to the sections of limitation. By § 34, the act was
not to prevent suits within four years, and, by § 35, after
"four years from the time of rendering a final decree, in any
water district, all parties whose interests are thereby affected
shall be deemed and held to have acquiesced in the same . . . , and
thereafter all persons shall be forever barred from setting up any
claim to priority of rights to water for irrigation in such water
district adverse or contrary to the effect of such decree."
Laws of 1881, pp. 159-160. Rev.Stats. 1908, §§ 3313, 3314. Later
statutes were enacted in 1887 and 1903, creating divisions and
requiring the irrigation division engineers to tabulate the
priorities and rights as established by decree in the different
districts of their divisions, and to administer the use of water
accordingly. But these statutes are not material. The parties'
rights were held to be fixed under the Act of 1881.
On December 10, 1883, the proper court for the defendant
company's district made a decree that the company was entitled to a
priority of right to the use of water for irrigation purposes of
1184 cubic feet of water per second from the South Platte and its
tributaries, dated January 18, 1879, which was prior to the date of
the plaintiff's rights. It will be observed that the Act of 1881
was in force when this decree was made. The plaintiff contends that
the construction of § 35 of the act, as applying to parties in a
different district, this construction having been first announced
after the period of limitation had gone by, had the effect of a new
statute declaring his rights barred by time already elapsed, and
attempted to
Page 242 U. S. 26
make conclusive against him a proceeding to which he was not a
party, and in which he would not have been heard.
So far as the last objection goes, the answer is that, if it be
true that the plaintiff was not entitled to be heard on the
defendant's decree, still there was nothing to hinder the state
from providing that, if he took no step to assert his rights within
a reasonable time after the judicial assertion of an adverse title,
the decree being a public fact, he should lose those rights.
See Barker v. Harvey, 181 U. S. 481;
Soper v. Lawrence Bros. Co., 201 U.
S. 359,
201 U. S.
367-368;
American Land Co. v. Zeiss,
219 U. S. 47,
219 U. S. 60;
Montoya v. Gonzales, 232 U. S. 375,
232 U. S. 378.
The answer to the first half of the plaintiff's contention is no
less plain. It is that the construction of a statute does not take
a party's property without due process of law simply because it
takes him by surprise, and when it is too late for him to act on
the construction and save his rights. That is all that the
plaintiff has to complain of. There was no different construction
of the statute by the court before the limitation had run that
might have lulled him to repose. The only decisions relied upon by
the plaintiff as tending to favor him are
Nichols v.
McIntosh, 19 Colo. 22, and
Sterling Irrig. Co. v.
Downer, 19 Colo. 595, which were not rendered until 1893 and
1894, and both of which are consistent with
Ft. Lyon Canal Co.
v. Arkansas Valley Sugar Beet & Irrig. Land Co., 39 Colo.
332, establishing the construction followed in this case. It should
be added that, however strong the argument for a different
interpretation, the one adopted also was strongly supported, so
that there can be no pretense that a perverse reading of the law
was used as an excuse for giving a retrospective effect to the law
of 1903. The decision was absolutely entitled to respect.
It is suggested that the cases cited established a rule of
Page 242 U. S. 27
property, and that any departure from it violated the
plaintiff's rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. But we already
have said that the cases do not establish the rule supposed, and,
if they did, something more would be necessary before the plaintiff
could come to this court.
Sauer v. New York, 206 U.
S. 536,
206 U. S.
547-548;
Chicago & Alton R. Co. v.
Tranbarger, 238 U. S. 67,
238 U. S.
76.
Judgment affirmed.