Albonico v. Madera Irrigation District

47 Cal.2d 695 (1957) PHILLIP ALBONICO et al., Respondents,

v.

MADERA IRRIGATION DISTRICT (a Corporation) et al., Appellants.

Sac. No. 6460. Supreme Court of California. In Bank.

Jan. 24, 1957. David E. Peckinpah, Denver C. Peckinpah, Harold M. Child and L. N. Barber for Appellants.

Edmund G. Brown, Attorney General, B. Abbott Goldberg and Adolphus Moskovitz, Deputy Attorneys General, Harry W. Horton, R. J. Knox, Jr., Frank E. Jenney, Ronald B. Harris, P. J. Minasian, Martin McDonough, J. Lee Rankin, Solicitor General of the United States, Perry W. Morton, Assistant Attorney General, David R. Warner and Roger P. Marquis, Attorneys, Department of Justice, [fn. ] as Amici Curiae on behalf of Appellants. [696]

Green, Green, Plumley & Kuney, Winslow B. Green, Kenneth P. Kuney, Sherwood Green, and Green, Green & Bartow for Respondents.

Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, Herman Phleger, Alvin J. Rockwell and John M. Naff, Jr., as Amici Curiae on behalf of Respondents.

SHENK, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment for the petitioners Phillip and Jane E. Albonico, husband and wife, in a proceeding for the writ of mandate to compel the respondent Madera Irrigation District to vacate its resolution denying the exclusion from the district of the petitioners' lands in excess of 320 acres. Exclusion is sought on the ground that such excess lands would not be benefited by the operations of the district. (Wat. Code, 26728, 26729; Code Civ. Proc., 1085.)

A brief history of the Madera Irrigation District from the time of its inception is set forth in the companion case, Madera Irr. Dist. v. All Persons, ante, p. 681 [306 P.2d 886]. That case involved the validity of a contract entered into by and between the district and the United States acting through its Bureau of Reclamation of the Department of the Interior for the sale and distribution of water for irrigating purposes to the landowners in the district. Among other provisions of the contract considered in that case were the so-called acreage limitations and enforced sales provisions. In substance it was provided that a single person owning in excess of 160 acres and a married couple in excess of 320 acres are "large land owners"; that large landowners shall, within 30 days after notice to do so, select the 160 or 320 acres, as the case may be, of his or their lands to be deemed nonexcess; that if a large landowner fails to make such selection the district may do so for him and if the district does not do so, the Secretary of the Department of the Interior of the United States may do so, and that no water may be furnished by the district to excess lands unless and until the nonexcess portions thereof have been selected and the landowner has executed a recordable contract to sell or authorize the Secretary of the Interior to sell within 10 years the excess lands at an appraised sum which the landowner has no voice in determining and without regard to water rights involved in the irrigation project contemplated by the district and the United States.