Williams v. City of Wichita

Not to be outdone by the legislature in the confiscation of private property, the Supreme Court of Kansas today upholds the constitutionality of the 1945 Water Appropriation Act (G. S. 1949, 82a-701, et seq.) by decreeing an established property right (one which even the legislature and the city of Wichita recognized) to be nonexistent. Kansas decisions declaring the right of the landowner to the underground water in his land to be a common law vested property right are inferentially overruled, and, in effect, the new rule of law is given retroactive application to the time of origin of…