148 P. 791 | Cal. | 1915
This is an appeal from the judgment by all of the defendants except those sued by fictitious names.
Plaintiffs are the owners of agricultural lands located within the boundaries of Central Irrigation District, and, as they assert in their complaint, their property is susceptible of irrigation from the common source and system of irrigation controlled by certain of the defendants, particularly Sacramento Valley West Side Canal Company and Sacramento Valley Irrigation Company, although they admit that it will take more than a year to extend the canal of the former corporation from Maxwell, its present terminus, to and *126 beyond the town of Williams, so that the water will be brought into proximity to their lands. Williams is about ten miles south of Maxwell.
After trial the court made elaborate findings and decreed that the waters taken by defendants from the Sacramento River were and are appropriated to a public use; that the area for the benefit of which said waters are appropriated is the land within Central Irrigation District; that the farms of plaintiffs are within that area; that plaintiffs own an estate and interest in said appropriation and that their lands are entitled to water for irrigation either at a rate voluntarily agreed upon by the parties or fixed by the board of supervisors of Colusa County; that defendants are not entitled to convey water outside of the place of intended use and area for which said water was appropriated and (to quote from the decree itself): "They are not entitled to irrigate lands outside said area, or furnish water for the irrigation thereof, until the requirements for the irrigation of the lands of plaintiffs have been fully met and provided for, and the defendants, and neither of them, are entitled to sell water-rights upon lands inside or outside said area or place of intended use, until plaintiffs' requirements are fully met and provided for."
The findings contain a history of the attempt to furnish a system of irrigation for the west side of the Sacramento Valley beginning with the formation of the Central Irrigation District in 1887. The district contains one hundred and fifty-six thousand acres of land. The towns of Williams and Maxwell and the surrounding territory, including the holdings of plaintiffs, are within this acreage. The purpose and plan of the district was to irrigate the lands therein by water to be taken from the Sacramento River and conveyed through a canal to be something more than sixty-one miles in length. In 1890 and the two following years the canal was dug for a distance of about forty miles, the section excavated commencing near the point of intended diversion on the Sacramento River in Glenn County, about a quarter of a mile from the intersection of the river by the boundary line between Glenn and Tehama counties, and running thence southerly through the lands of the district to Maxwell. No further excavation was done until after January, 1903. In December, 1902, the board of directors of the Central Irrigation District, claiming to be proceeding in accordance with the *127 Irrigation District Act of 1901 (Stats. 1901, p. 815) amendatory of the act of 1897 (Stats. 1897, p. 254) decided to lease the properties of the district; and in the early part of 1903 a lease was executed between the Central Irrigation District and Willard M. Sheldon, by the terms of which the lessee agreed to complete the canal for its entire length, together with all distributing canals, and to acquire all necessary water-rights, and to sell and distribute water to the owners of all of the lands in said district for the irrigation of said lands. The term of the lease was fifty years, and the rental was fifty dollars per year. Sheldon assigned this lease to Central Canal Irrigation Company in February, 1903, and in the following years to and including 1908, considerable work was done by that corporation, including the extension of the canal to the Sacramento River. In 1906, Central Canal Irrigation Company obtained from Congress the right to divert and appropriate nine hundred cubic feet of water per second from the Sacramento River at the point of intake of the Central Canal for the irrigation of all the lands of Central Irrigation District. The court found also that the right to divert and appropriate this water from a navigable stream was obtained by the corporation "in pursuance with the covenants and conditions" of the lease "and for the purpose of enabling it to distribute, sell and supply water to all the lands within said district." There was also a finding that: "Said right was granted by Congress for the public purpose and use of selling and distributing water for irrigating purposes to all the landowners and lands within the district." In 1909, Sacramento Valley Irrigation Company obtained an assignment of the lease, and in July of that year transferred it to Sacramento Valley West Side Canal Company, a subsidiary corporation, a majority of the stock of which is owned by the irrigation company.
The lease is set out in the findings and the court finds that under it the West Side Company is obligated to sell water for the lands of plaintiffs; that defendants are estopped from denying the de facto existence of the Central Irrigation District and that they are estopped also from denying the operative portions of the lease. It is also found that the two allied corporations are successors of the original appropriation of water for the Central Irrigation District; that said original appropriation was for a public use; that the Central Canal is *128 dedicated to a public use and that the lease was intended to carry out the public use of selling and distributing water for irrigation to the lands in Central Irrigation District.
The findings further recite that Sacramento Valley Irrigation Company owns more than eighty thousand acres of land in Central Irrigation District; that the corporation entertains the purpose of buying substantially all of the land in the district and reselling it with "water-rights" exclusively attached thereto. It is found that in pursuance of this plan the two companies have agreed and announced that the West Side Company will not sell water for irrigation of any lands within the district not now owned or hereafter acquired by the Irrigation Company, except that the West Side Company further states it will not irrigate any other lands whatsoever unless a water-right is purchased for such tracts at a rate to be fixed by it at not less than seventy-five dollars per acre; that the West Side Company also asserts that it intends to make use of all the water available from the Sacramento River for the irrigation of the land owned by the Sacramento Valley Irrigation Company, or to be acquired by that corporation within or outside of the Central Irrigation District. And it is also found that: "the Sacramento Valley West Side Canal Company is now delivering to the purchasers of lands from the Sacramento Valley Irrigation Company alleged water-rights to the entire exclusion of the plaintiffs and which water-rights purport to vest in the purchasers of said lands a right to the proportion of all of said water to be derived from said river measured and divided only by the rights of other purchasers of land from said Sacramento Valley Irrigation Company and purchasers of water-rights, if any, from said Sacramento Valley West Side Canal Company, at not less than $75 per acre."
Appellants insist that plaintiffs have no estate in the water by deraignment through the lease and that they are therefore entitled to no decree quieting their title or providing injunctive relief. In this behalf they assert that the irrigation district had no existence, either de jure or de facto when the lease was executed in 1903. Respondents admit this claim to be correct so far as the formal organization of the district was concerned, because it was held by this court (In re CentralIrrigation District,
Occupying, as it does, the relation of tenant under the assigned lease, the Sacramento Valley West Side Canal Company is estopped from denying the validity of the title under which it took possession of the demised premises. (Jones on Landlord and Tenant, sec. 682.) While admitting the rule that ordinarily a tenant is estopped from denying the title of the lessor, the appellants insist that they are not bound by the contract of lease and that plaintiffs may enjoy no rights thereunder because the act of the legislature authorizing such leases was unconstitutional and the lease was ultra vires as against public policy and void. While it is true that a quasi public corporation — one, for example, engaged in supplying water for a public use — may not, without legislative sanction, transfer all of its property to another (Visalia Gas Electric Light Co. v. Sims,
Part of the consideration for the lease was the promise of the lessee to complete the canal. Plaintiffs assert that they are entitled to protect themselves by resort to a court of equity from the dissipation of their rights before the water shall be conducted to a place near their property; from the sale of water outside the district for which it was appropriated; and from the creation of preferential classes who will dispute with them their title to the water which they have as residents of the district. Appellants, on the contrary, take the position that the owners of land near Williams must wait until the extension of the canal and then enforce their rights, if any they have, by mandamus. They cite in support of that contention such cases as Cozzens v. NorthFork Ditch Co.,
Appellants try to bring themselves within the rules and principles declared in Thayer v. California Development Co.,
Appellants introduced in evidence several notices of appropriation. It is argued that any violation of the promised development outlined in these notices and any failure to comply with the rules of diligent construction merely entails upon the failing appropriators a forfeiture of their right as against a subsequent claimant (Civ. Code, sec.
Plaintiffs are not seeking to compel a spreading out of an insufficient supply of water over a large territory merely because it is mentioned in any notice of appropriation. Therefore the discussion in Palmer v. Railroad Commission,
The judgment is affirmed.
Shaw, J., Henshaw, J., Lorigan, J., Lawlor, J., and Angellotti, C.J., concurred.
Rehearing denied.