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248 U.S. 35

63 L. Ed. 109

Docket No. 288.

Orr v. Allen

Supreme Court of the United States

Submitted October 14, 1918.

Decided December 9, 1918.

Supreme Court of the United States · decided 1918-12-09

<p>APPEAL FROM T&É DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO.</p> <p>The case is stated in the opinion. ,</p>

2 counsel of record

Relies on Houck v. Little River Drainage District · Nicoulin v. O'Brien · Orr v. Allen

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · 9–0 · Decided 1918-12-09

How this case has been cited

Cited by 33 later decisions (9 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2014 · most notably Ex parte Collins (1928), State of Ohio Bryant v. Akron Metropolitan Park Dist for Summit County State of Ohio Wadsworth (1930)

3 federal appellate · 4 district · 10 state decisions

14019181920193019401950196019701980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1APPEAL FROM T&É DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO.

¶2The “Conservancy Act of Ohio,” designed to prevent floods, and authorizing creation of drainage districts, and drainage improvements through administrative boards empowered to exert eminent domain, and to tax, assess for benefits, and issue bonds, affords full, opportunity for testing private grievances judicially, and, as correctly construed by the court below, is consistent with the state and federal constitutions.

¶3245 Fed. Rep. 486, affirmed.

¶4The case is stated in the opinion. ,

¶5Mr. Robert J. Smith for appellant.

¶6Mr. Oren Britt Brown for appellees. Mr. John Á. McMahon was also on the brief.

¶7Memorandum opinion by

¶8The Chief Justice.

¶9The “Conservancy Act of Ohio” is the name given the statute by its first section. Its seventy-nine sections are thus epitomized in the title: “To prevent floods, to protect cities, villages, farms and highways from inundation, and to authorize the organization of drainage and conservation districts.” Ohio Gen. Code, §§ 6828-1 to 6828-79; Laws of Ohio, vol. 104, p. 13. The statute was admittedly designed to prevent the recurrence of the unprecedented and disastrous flood which invaded the Miami Valley in 1913. Briefly, there was provision for drainage districts, for boards to plan, construct and maintain the works contemplated, with the right to *36exert eminent domain, and to raise money by taxation, by assessments for benefits, and, in some cases, by issue of bonds. Every person affected who was aggrieved was undoubtedly given ample means by . the statute to test judicially his grievance.

¶10A district was organized embracing land along each side of the Miami River which had been flooded in 1913 or which was required for reservoir sites or for furnishing material.

¶11The appellant, a citizen of California owning property within this district, filed his bill to enjoin the enforcement of the statute on the ground that it was repugnant to both the constitution of the State and that of the United States. The court, organized under § 266 of the Judicial Code, in a careful and clear opinion disposed adversely of every proposition upon which the contention was based. The injunction was refused.' This direct appeal was taken.

¶12All the contentions rest upon one or the other or both of .two propositions; (1) That the statute is unconstitutional because of some particular provision relied upon; and (2) because of the inherent want of constitutional authority by Government to exert the powers which the statute gave. The first assumes that the statute has a significance which the Supreme Court of Ohio has expressly decided it has not, and, in addition, that the constitution of the State forbids the exertion of a legis-. lative power which the same court has expressly held the legislature possessed. The-second disregards a line of conclusive decisions of this court which leave nothing open for controversy, or, which is tantamount thereto, separates expressions in opinions of this court from their context in order to give to them a meaning which the opinions do not sanction and which it has been repeatedly declared would be inconsistent with the decided cases.

¶13Thus concluding, we think nothing is required to dis*37pose of the controversy but to cite the two lines of cases referred to. (1) Snyder v. Deeds, 91 Ohio St. 407; Miami County v. Dayton, 92 Ohio St. 215; County Commissioners v. Gates, 83 Ohio St. 19, 34; State ex rel. Franklin County Conservancy District v. Valentine, 94 Ohio St. 440; (2) Houck v. Little River Drainage District, 239 U. S. 254, 262, and cases cited.

¶14Affirmed.

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