Description
Book Synopsis Exploring the little-known history behind the legal doctrine of prior appropriation--first in time is first in right--used to apportion water resources in the western United States, this book focuses on the important case of Wyoming v. Colorado (1922). U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Willis Van Devanter, a former Chief Justice of Wyoming, ruled in that state''s favor, finding that prior appropriation applied across state lines--a controversial opinion influenced by cronyism. The dicta in the case, that the U.S. Government has no interest in state water allocation law, drove the balkanization of interstate water systems and resulted in the Colorado River Interstate Compact between Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California.
The exhaustive research that has gone into this book has uncovered the secret that Associate Justice Van Devanter had waited eleven years to publish his opinion in this important, but politically self-serving, case
Table of Contents
Prologue: Of Water, Men and the Law
Part I. The Times
1. The Nation Moves West (1830–1880)
2. Herbert Spencer and Social Darwinism (1859–1938)
3. Economic Fortunes and Misfortunes (1860–1875)
4. The Prior Appropriation Doctrine (1840s–Present)
5. Equitable Apportionment (1902–Present)
6. Interstate Compacts (1922–Present)
Part II. The Man
Willis the Lawyer (1812–1894)
7. Young Willis Van Devanter
8. Cincinnatus (1833–1885)
9. Watching the Court (1870s, 1880s)
10. Willis Goes West (1883)
11. The Warren Machine (1884–1890)
12. Willis and the "Johnson County War" (1890–1892)
13. Banditti of the Plains (1893–1896)
Willis the Politician/Bureaucrat
14. Willis' Wyoming Politics Go National (1892–1896)
15. Cleveland's Second Chance, Senator Warren and the McKinley Administration (1895–1897)
16. Assistant Attorney General Van Devanter (1897–1903)
Willis the Judge
17. Van Devanter's Eighth Circuit Decisions (1903–1911)
18. Reasonable Rail Rates, the Sherman Act (1890–1911)
19. The Supreme Court Turns White (1908–1911)
20. The Sherman Act at the Supreme Court
21. "Good Fellows" Willis and William (1921–1922)
Part III. The Laramie River Litigation
22. Wyoming v. Colorado (1903–1913)
23. Who Controls the Water? (1902–1917)
24. Development Under the Reclamation Act and Return to Court (1905–1922)
25. Judicial Harmony (1922)
26. Natural Resource or Interstate Commerce? (1921–1923)
27. Van Devanter's Surreptitious Composition of the Opinion and Decree (1922)
28. Wyoming v. Colorado, Final Opinion Published (1922)
29. Where Was the Balance of the Court on June 5, 1922? (1922)
30. The Decree and Holding of Wyoming v. Colorado
Part IV. Implications for Water Law
31. What of the Merits of Wyoming v. Colorado?
32. What of the Effect of the Decision in Wyoming v. Colorado?
33. The Case for Recusal
Part V. Willis Van Devanter's Justice
34. Van Devanter's Indian Cases (1897–1921)
35. Van Devanter's Income Tax Cases (1920–1925)
36. The Four Horsemen
37. The Measure of a Justice
38. Finis
Epilogue: That Was Then, This Is Now
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index
