255 P.2d 384 | Colo. | 1953
delivered the opinion of the court.
The Laguna Canal Company, a corporation, was, on May 17, 1909, and for some undisclosed period of time prior thereto, the owner of the Lake Canal and Lake Reservoir, with certain dams, intakes, head-gates, waste-ways and laterals, and certain appropriations and priorities of water, all in Otero county, Colorado. It issued four so-called water deeds to Oliver Adcock, bearing dates of May 17, 1909, May 18, 1909, November 15, 1909, and November 16, 1909, by which deeds it sold and conveyed to Oliver Adcock six water rights entitling him “to the perpetual use of water flowing in said canal or from the storage reservoirs of said canal at the option of the party of the first part, for irrigation and domestic purposes, in an amount to each water right a sufficient amount of water for the irrigation of eighty (80) acres of land, not exceeding in delivery one (1) cubic foot of water per second of time, * * * ” limiting the use to the lands described in the deed. By said deed there was sold and conveyed to Oliver Adcock six water rights, which, as is said, entitled him “to the perpetual use of water flowing in said canal or from the storage reservoirs of said canal at the option of the party of the first part, for irrigation and domestic purposes, * * This provision is qualified by the following “condition”
It was provided in the May 17, 1909, and November 15, 1909, water deeds, respectively, that the Laguna Canal Company “agrees to keep and maintain said canal in good order and condition; and to sell no more water rights than the estimated capacity of its canal will warrant, and the said first party shall have the right to assess each of the water rights it has sold for the expense of maintaining, repairing and operating said canal, and taxes if any, a sum not to exceed twenty-five ($25) dollars per annum payable .on March 1st, of each year for the expenses of the previous calendar year, and any deficit that may have been occasioned the year prior thereto; said amount to be arrived at by apportioning the actual expenditures and deficit, if any as aforesaid pro rata, among the water rights outstanding at the close of the year for which the assessment is made, and the assessment to be upon such water rights only.”
We shall refer to the water deeds of May 18, 1909,
Oliver Adcock subsequently conveyed the water rights included in the water deeds of May 17, 1909, and May 18, 1909, to defendant T. J. Adcock, and the water rights in the water deeds of November 15, 1909, and November 16, 1909, to Minnie Adcock, the grantees in said deeds, being now the owners of the water rights therein sold and conveyed. On October 1, 1924, Oliver Adcock and Minnie Adcock, his wife, made and executed their promissory note to the Farmers Loan Company, a corporation, securing the payment of the same by a deed of trust upon the lands described in the water deeds of November 15, 1909, and November 16, 1909. Said note and deed of trust were subsequently sold by the Farmers Loan Company to the defendant the New York Life Insurance Company, and the Farmers Loan Company thereafter had no interest whatever in this litigation. On stipulation of counsel that the indebtedness secured by said deed of trust had been fully paid and discharged, an order of court was entered dismissing the action as to the New York Life Insurance Company.
The Laguna Canal Company, by its deed of December 21, 1909, sold and conveyed to the Holbrook Irrigation District, a quasi-municipal corporation, for the consideration of $110,442.05 to it in hand paid, the Lake Canal and the Lake Reservoir, as the same were then located, constructed and operated in Otero county, Colorado, together with all diverting dams, intakes, head-gates, waste-ways and laterals wheresoever situated and then belonging to it; all rights of ways and easements ac
It is admitted that the Holbrook Irrigation District was organized in 1909, and that Oliver Adcock, then owning the lands and water rights described in his four water deeds hereinbefore mentioned, refused to have his lands included within the boundaries of said water district, and said lands are not now, nor have they ever been, included within the boundaries thereof.
The Holbrook Irrigation District issued its bonds in the sum of $650,000.00, which sum it proposed to expend in the following manner:
For the purchase of The Laguna Canal Company $135,000.00
For the water rights owned by land owners 365,000.00
For the purchase and development of Dye Lake 71.000. 00
Increase the capacity of Holbrook Reservoir No. 1 (Lake) 24.000. 00
For the enlargement of Lake Canal 19.000. 00
First year’s interest on bonds 36.000. 00
There now remains an unpaid balance of said bond issue of approximately $200,000.00.
It further appears that from 1936 until 1949, inclusive, the landowners in the Holbrook Irrigation District have been assessed annually sums varying from sixty-one
In 1909, when the Adcocks acquired title to water rights for the irrigation of certain described lands, the Laguna Canal Company owned but one reservoir, i.e., Lake Reservoir, with only one priority therefor, that priority being No. 2, for 4276 acre feet. Subsequently the Holbrook Irrigation District acquired priority No. 49 for 3196 acre feet; priority No. 20 for 4500 acre feet, and priority No. 43 for 3486 acre feet. Priority No. 49 was for storage in Holbrook Reservoir No. 1 and priorities Nos. 20 and 43 for storage in Dye Reservoir.
Subsequent to acquiring title to the Lake Canal and its various appurtenances, the Holbrook Irrigation District enlarged the Lake Reservoir (Holbrook Reservoir No. 1) so that its storage capacity was increased from 4276 acre feet to 7472 acre feet at an estimated expense of $24,000.00; enlarged the Lake Canal (Holbrook Canal) at an estimated expense of $19,000.00; purchased and developed Dye Reservoir at an estimated expenditure of $71,000.00; and acquired additional storage priorities amounting to 11,182 acre feet of which 3196 acre feet was stored in the enlarged Lake Reservoir (Holbrook
There is evidence that the storage capacity of Lake Reservoir has been reduced 31.5 per cent since 1914 and that this loss of storage capacity is attributable solely to sedimentation; however, there is no evidence indicating that the Holbrook Irrigation District has not utilized priority No. 2 for 4276 acre feet which it acquired by virtue of its deed from the Laguna Canal Company. Taking into consideration the storage loss by reason of sedimentation, Lake Reservoir (Holbrook No. 1) as originally constructed, now has a storage capacity of 2929.06 acre feet.
Subsequent to 1909, as we have said, the Holbrook Irrigation District acquired priorities Nos. 20 and 43 for Dye Reservoir storage and purchased and constructed Dye Reservoir. Counsel for the Holbrook Irrigation District contends that the Adcocks had no right or interest in these priorities or in Dye Reservoir because they shared in neither the expense of acquiring the priorities nor the expense of constructing Dye Reservoir. From the, record it appears that the storage waters in Holbrook No. 1 and Dye Reservoir were co-mingled and run through the Holbrook Canal to the head-gates of the Adcocks, as well as the landowners in the district. It is undisputed that during the years 1914 to 1917, inclusive, and 1928 to 1931, inclusive, no storage waters whatever were delivered under the Adcock water deeds; however, from 1931 until 1949, inclusive, while storage waters from the Holbrook and Dye Reservoirs were co-mingled in the Holbrook Canal, the Adcocks were delivered approximately apportioned one-half as much water from the combined storages of Holbrook and Dye Reservoirs as was delivered to each landowner in the district who owned water rights equal to those owned by the Ad-
The trial court, in its declaratory judgment, stated that the two issues to be determined are:
First—The extent of the right of the defendants to receive water for irrigation from the irrigation works and system owned and operated by the plaintiff and, Second—The extent of the liability of the defendants for the payment of money to the plaintiff annually for the use of water.
The court then analyzes and considers the provisions of the deeds from the Laguna Canal Company to Oliver Adcock, and in its conclusions of law are the following:
“As to the extent of the rights of the defendants to receive water for irrigation from the irrigation works and system of the plaintiff, it is the opinion of the Court that such rights are fixed by the deeds in question and require little, if any, declaration by the Court.
“The grantor states in the deeds that it is the owner of the Lake Canal and conveys the perpetual use of water flowing in said canal or from the storage reservoirs of said canal at the option of the grantor, in the amounts and under the conditions stated.
“There is no other specification in the contract as to what water shall be available to the grantee and the portion of the printed form intended for certain water right specifications is omitted. The plural form is used with reference to the word reservoir at a time when the grantor had but one reservoir. This must be held to indicate that the grantor had in mind the possible acquisition of other reservoirs; contemplated selling more water rights than the estimated capacity of the canal would warrant, and reserved the right to furnish the water
The court further found: “As to the extent of the liability of the defendants for the payment of money for the use of said water, it is the opinion of the Court that the power to fix these rates is vested in the Board of County Commissioners and the Court has no jurisdiction to fix future rates, except in case of a review of the action of such board.”
Plaintiff’s specification of points may be thus summarized: First, that error was committed in determining that the Adcocks were entitled to share proportionately in all waters belonging to the Holbrook Irrigation District exactly the same as were landowners within said district, and, second, in determining that the Board of County Commissioners of Otero county was authorized to fix and determine the annual payment which defendants should make for the use of water from the Holbrook Irrigation system.
Defendants present cross specifications of points, and their argument is confined largely to the second specification assigned by plaintiff.'
We shall dispose of the specifications and cross specifications of points in the order mentioned.
1. It should be borne in mind that no dispute has here arisen concerning Oliver Adcock or his grantee’s rights to share' equally with landowners in the district in the direct flow water passing through the enlarged Lake Canal (Holbrook). It also should be borne in mind that since acquiring title to water rights Oliver Adcock and his grantees never have paid in excess of $25.00 annually for irrigation water for each eighty acres of land irrigated, whereas the landowners within the Holbrook have paid, as we have shown, sums greatly in excess of that amount. Defendants contend that they are entitled to share in all waters from plaintiff’s storage reservoirs equally with the landowners in the irrigation district, although they themselves declined to become a
We will not indulge in any presumptions or assumptions with reference to what the Laguna Canal Company “had in mind” with reference to the possible acquisition of other reservoirs at the time in 1909 when it executed
Our irrigation district law in force and effect in December, 1909, was Session Laws of Colorado 1905, page 246, chapter 113, and we have said with reference thereto that: “The object of this act, as even a casual reading shows, is compulsorily to provide means, at the expense of those landowners within the proposed district primarily benefited, for bringing into cultivation the arid lands of the state and making them highly productive by the process of irrigation.” Anderson v. Grand Valley Irrigation District, 35 Colo. 525, 532, 85 Pac. 313.
In the year 1931 our court said: “That acts in this
As we have said, counsel for the Holbrook Irrigation District concedes defendants’ right to their proportionate share as represented by their water rights to all direct flow river water as the same is running in the Holbrook Canal, and are entitled to their or a proportionate share as represented by their water deeds to all water stored in Lake Reservoir (Holbrook No. 1) which had priority No. 2 for 4276 acre feet at the time the Laguna Canal Company executed its water deeds to Oliver Adcock. There is nothing in the record to indicate that the Holbrook Irrigation District is not exercising its full rights under priority No. 2 and utilizing to the full extent of that priority 4276 acre feet, and, irrespective of sedimentation, so long as the Holbrook Irrigation District avails itself of this priority, Oliver Adcock is entitled to his proportionate share of all water stored thereunder. Priorities Nos. 20, 43 and 49 belong exclusively to the landowners in the Holbrook Irrigation District, as does also Dye Reservoir belong exclusively to the landowners in said district, and the defendants, having determined to remain without the district boundaries and not share in the expense of obtaining enlarged facilities for the irrigation of lands, are not entitled, under their water deeds, to share in the priorities last named or the storage of the water delivered under those priorities. The trial court erred in holding otherwise.
2. Our attention has not been directed to any statute or decision limiting the right of the Laguna Canal Company to sell and dispose of water rights under its
We note that the complaint herein was filed November 15, 1945; the answer on the 18th day of October, 1946; the trial began on February 9, 1950; the judgment entered on November 29, 1950; the cause docketed here on December 24, 1951; came at issue here on May 20, 1952; and was orally argued on October 20, 1952. We call attention to these dates so that the delay in the de
For the errors noted herein, the judgment is reversed and the cause remanded with instructions to the lower court to set aside its judgment in this cause and enter a judgment in favor of plaintiff consistent with the views herein expressed.