UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE

1. Pursuant to authority conferred by law, the Board of Public Works of a state leased the surplus water of her canals, but reserved the right to resume the use of it when it should be needed for the purposes of navigation. A statute was subsequently passed whereby one of the canals within certain limits was granted to, and appropriated by, a city for a highway. Held that the lessee was not thereby deprived of his property without due process of law, as the state, so far from assuming an obligation to maintain the canals to supply water power, had the right, of which every lessee was bound to take notice, to discontinue them whenever the legislature deemed expedient.

2. The question as to whether the city acted in excess of the grant and violated the conditions thereto annexed cannot be reexamined here on a writ of error to a state court.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the Court.