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To the Honorable Mayor and City Council:

City of Fort Worth.

I feel great pleasure in being able to report to you that on the
12th day of January, 1903 the case of W. L. Huff vs City of Fort Worth was
called for trial, and the trial of the said case was on that day begun and
on the next day was submitted to the jury on special issues and their find-
ing was so clearly in favor of the defendant that the court immediately
rendered judgment on the said verdict in favor of the city.

I regard this suit as one of great importance to the city in two
aspects:

1st. The amount of money which was involved which was the sum of
$7325.

2nd. In that the issue was involved and settled so overwhelmingly in
favor of the city that no further trouble on that score need be anticipated,
to-wit, do the water works dams cause the Clear Fork to overflow more than
it would were the dams not there.

In order that you may clearly understand this I copy in this re-
port the Fourth issue as submitted by the court which is as follows, to-
wit.

"Find and state whether or not the damages to crops and grass above men-
tioned were occasioned by reason or the dams complained of in plaintiff's
petition, and in this connection you are instructed that if you believe
from the evidence that the rain which produced said overflow was sufficient
to have caused the same overflow, if said dams had not been constructed,
then you will find that said overflow was not occasioned by said dams.

You are further instructed that the burden is upon the plaintiff to
prove, and that by a preponderance or the evidence, that but for said dams
said rain would not have produced said overflow, and if she has not done
so, you will find that the overflow was not occasioned by said dams."

To this issue the jury answered as follows to-wit:

"Upon issue No. 4 we find the overflow complained of in plaintiff's
petition was not occasioned by the dams complained of in plaintiff's petition."