Winters v. United States/Opinion of the Court

A question of jurisdiction is presented by the United States. Five of the defendants named in the bill failed to answer and a decree pro confesso was taken against them. The other defendants, appellants here, after the affirmance by the circuit court of appeals of the interlocutory injunction, filed a joint and several answer. On this answer and the bill the case was heard and a decree entered against all of the defendants. From that decree the appellants here appealed to the circuit court of appeals without joining therein the other five defendants. The contention is that the circuit court of appeals had no jurisdiction and that this court has none, because the five defaulting defendants had such interest in the case and decree that they should have joined in the appeal, or proceedings should have been taken against them in the nature of summons and severance or its equivalent.

The rule which requires the parties to a judgment or decree to join in an appeal or writ of error, or be detached from the right by some proper proceeding, or by their renunciation, is firmly established. But the the rule only applies to joint judgments or decrees. In other words, when the interest of a defendant is separate from that of other defendants he may appeal without them. Does the case at bar come within the rule? The bill does not distinguish the acts of the defendants, but it does not necessarily imply that there was between them, in the diversion of the waters of Milk river, concert of action or union of interest. The answer to the bill is joint and several, and in effect avers separate rights, interests, and action on the part of the defendants. In other words, whatever rights were asserted or admission of acts done by any one defendant had no dependence upon or relation to the acts of any other defendant in the appropriation or diversion of the water. If trespassers at all, they were separate trespassers. Joinder in one suit did not necessarily identify them. Besides, the defendants other than appellants defaulted. A decree pro confesso was entered against them and thereafter, according to equity rule 19, the cause was required to proceed ex parte and the matter of the bill decreed by the court. Thomson v. Wooster, 114 U.S. 104, 29 L. ed. 105, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 788. The decree was in due course made absolute, and granting that it might have been appealed from by the defaulting defendants, they would have been, as said in Thomson v. Wooster, absolutely barred and precluded from questioning its correctness, unless, on the face of the bill, it appeared manifest that it was erroneous and improperly granted. Their rights, therefore, were entirely different from those of the appellants; they were naked trespassers, and conceded by their default the rights of the United States and the Indians, and were in no position to resist the prayer of the bill. But the appellants justified by counter rights and submitted those rights for judgment. There is nothing, therefore, in common between appellants and the other defendants. The motion to dismiss is denied and we proceed to the merits.

The case, as we view it, turns on the agreement of May, 1888, resulting in the creation of Fort Belknap Reservation. In the construction of this agreement there are certain elements to be considered that are prominent and significant. The reservation was a part of a very much larger tract which the Indians had the right to occupy and use, and which was adequate for the habits and wants of a nomadic and uncivilized people. It was the policy of the government, it was the desire of the Indians, to change those habits and to become a pastoral and civilized people. If they should become such, the original tract was too extensive; but a smaller tract would be inadequate without a change of conditions. The lands were arid, and, without irrigation, were practically valueless. And yet, it is contended, the means of irrigation were deliberately given up by the Indians and deliberately accepted by the government. The lands ceded were, it is ture, also arid; and some argument may be urged, and is urged, that with their cession there was the cession of the waters, without which they would be valueless, and 'civilized communities could not be established thereon.' And this, it is further contended, the Indians knew, and yet made no reservation of the waters. We realize that there is a conflict of implications, but that which makes for the retention of the waters is of greater force than that which makes for their cession. The Indians had command of the lands and the waters, command of all their beneficial use, whether kept for hunting, 'and grazing roving herds of stock,' or turned to agriculture and the arts of civilization. Did they give up all this? Did they reduce the area of their occupation and give up the waters which made it valuable or adequate? And, even regarding the allegation of the answer as true, that there are springs and streams on the reservation flowing about 2,900 inches of water, the inquiries are pertinent. If it were possible to believe affirmative answers, we might also believe that the Indians were awed by the power of the government or deceived by its negotiators. Neither view is possible. The government is asserting the rights of the Indians. But extremes need not be taken into account. By a rule of interpretation of agreements and treaties with the Indians, ambiguities occurring will be resolved from the standpoint of the Indians. And the rule should certainly be applied to determine between two inferences, one of which would support the purpose of the agreement and the other impair or defeat it. On account of their relations to the government, it cannot be supposed that the Indians were alert to exclude by formal words every inference which might militate against or defeat the declared purpose of themselves and the government, even if it could be supposed that they had the intelligence to foresee the 'double sense' which might some time be urged against them.

Another contention of appellants is that if it be conceded that there was a reservation of the waters of Milk river by the agreement of 1888, yet the reservation was repealed by the admission of Montana into the Union, February 22, 1889, 'upon an equal footing with the original states.' The language of counsel is that 'any reservation in the agreement with the Indians, expressed or implied, whereby the waters of Milk river were not to be subject of appropriation by the citizens and inhabitants of said state, was repealed by the act of admission.' But to establish the repeal counsel rely substantially upon the same argument that they advance against the intention of the agreement to reserve the waters. The power of the government to reserve the waters and exempt them from appropriation under the state laws is not denied, and could not be. United States v. Rio Grande Dam & Irrig. Co. 174 U.S. 702, 43 L. ed. 1141, 19 Sup. Ct. Rep. 770; United States v. Winans, 198 U.S. 371, 49 L. ed. 1089, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 662. That the government did reserve them we have decided, and for a use which would be necessarily continued through years. This was done May 1, 1888, and it would be exterme to believe that within a year Congress destroyed the reservation and took from the Indians the consideration of their grant, leaving them a barren waste,-took from them the means of continuing their old habits, yet did not leave them the power to change to new ones.

Appellants' argument upon the incidental repeal of the agreement by the admission of Montana into the Union, and the power over the waters of Milk river which the state thereby acquired to dispose of them under its laws, is elaborate and able, but our construction of the agreement and its effect make it unnecessary to answer the argument in detail. For the same reason we have not discussed the doctrine of riparian rights urged by the government.

Decree affirmed.

Mr. Justice Brewer dissents.