Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 107, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1920 — LAKE COUNTY DITCH CASE REVERSED IN SUPREME COURT [ARTICLE]

LAKE COUNTY DITCH CASE REVERSED IN SUPREME COURT

The case of the Northern Indiana Land Compan, et al., vi. Patrick J. Carlin, et al, for the location and construction of a 4tch in the Kankakee Marsh across the south end of Lake County, which was tried by Judge Jaimes P. Wason, of Delphi, sitting as special Judge in the Lake Circuit Court, was reversed by the Supreme Court of Indiana, l&st week. Attorney Abraham Halleck, of this city, was the chief counsel for the remonstraters, Northern Indiana Land Company, and others, prepared and filed their briefs and argued the case in the Supreme Court in December, 1919. The drainage commissioners in making their report, recommended the deepening and widening of the old Singleton Ditch, running west through the south part of Lake County, into the state of Illinois north of the Kankakee River, and as a part of the same proceeding they provided for the construction of a second outlet which was designed to divert the waters from the upper portion of the drainage area, comprising about 25,000 acres, and discharge it through the existing system of dykes into the Marble Ditch near the Jasper-Porter county line and opposite the large body of lands in this, Jasper County, owned by the appellant, Northern Indiana Land Company The Land Company filed a remonstrance denying the jurisdiction of the drainage commissioners to report a double system of drainage, one of which, known as the Nethery Lateral, was not described in the petition, affected lands which were not described, and which, if constructed, would divert from the Singleton Ditch and discharge into the Marble ditch a large amount of water at a point many miles above where tne water originally found its outlet into the river. _ The ease was tried at Crown Point twice; the first time before special Judge William Paly. of Val ‘ paraiso. Both Judge Daly and Judge Wason held against the remonstrators on the question of whether or not the drainage commissioners and the court had jurisdiction to build the Nethery Lateral under the petition on file. Judge Wason overruled the remonstrance of the Northern Indiana Land Company, and rendered judgment establishing the ditch and ordering its construction. The lands of the Northern Indiana Land Company were not assessed on the ditch, but the Company alleged in its remonstrance that the Nethery Lateral if constructed, would cause the Marble ditch to overflow and thus flood and damage their lands. ... I The Supreme Court sustained Attorney Halleck in his contention ,that the drainage commissioners and the Lake Circuit Court had no jurisdiction or power to order construction of the so called Nethery ! Lateral,” for the reason that it is not a lateral to the main ditch at all, but is, in fact, a separate and different drain, and ordered the report of the drainage commissioners set aside as not being according to law.