Kankakee Drainage District v. Commissioners of Lake Fork Special Drainage District

Citations

• 130 Ill. 261
• 22 N.E. 607

Syllabus

<p>1. Drainage law—connecting districts—liability as between them— the statute construed. Section 42 of the Farm Drainage act of 1885, which provides that “the owners of land outside the drainage district, or another drainage district, may connect with ditches of the district already made, by the payment of such amount as they would have been assessed if originally included in the district, or, if such connection, by increase of water, requires an enlargement of the district ditches, then the outside owners of land so connecting, or other drainage district, as may be, shall pay the cost of such enlargement,” is applicable alike to all of the several classes of drainage districts formed under that act or the act of which it was a revision and amendment, but does not apply to and impose burdens upon a connecting drainage district formed .under another and wholly independent act of the legislature.</p> <p>2. A drainage district was formed under the act relating to farm drainage districts, and constructed a ditch or drain through a slough. Afterward, another drainage district was organized under the “Act to provide for the construction, reparation and protection of drains, ditches and levees across the lands of others, for agricultural, sanitary and mining purposes, and to provide for the organization of drainage districts,” approved and in force May 29,1879, which provided for a different and independent system of drainage districts from those contemplated by the Farm Drainage act, and the latter district constructed ditches above that of the former drain, and connecting therewith, whereby the flow of water in the first drain was increased, but the water in the upper district naturally flowed over the lands in the lower district: Held, that.the upper district was not liable, under the statute, to the lower district for the cost of enlarging its drain, made necessary by the connecting of the upper ditch or drain with the drain of the lower district.</p> <p>3. In such ca