Riverside Water Co. v. Jurupa Ditch Co.

McMURRAY, J. pro tern.

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This is an appeal from a judgment and decree rendered in an action for declaratory relief which plaintiff contends was erroneous.

This judgment provides that defendant shall receive and be furnished by plaintiff 300 inches of water under a 4-inch pressure at all times at the head of its ditch on the Santa Ana River, less any quantity of surface flow of said river which shall flow to the head of defendant’s ditch, so long as the flow of surface or subsurface water in the channel of said river would be sufficient in quantity, if uninterrupted, to pass the canal of plaintiff and flow down-channel to the location of said ditch in the amount of 300 inches measured under a 4-inch pressure. This judgment was based upon a decree made and entered by the Superior Court of San Bernardino County on October 11, 1886, in an action between the predecessors in

[540]

interest of the parties herein dealing with their rights to water in the Santa Ana River, which decree was reaffirmed and modified by contract between the parties dated April 19, 1904.

This contract, incorporating as it does the 1886 decree, was the basis for plaintiff’s request for declaratory relief. In its here pertinent parts this contract provides as follows :

After identifying the parties it recites the rendition of the 1886 decree and sets that decree forth in full, including its provisions ordering and decreeing:

"... that the said plaintiffs (respondent’s predecessors in interest and hereinafter designated "Jurupa”) are at all times entitled to have, and do have, three hundred (300) inches of water, measured under a four inch pressure, flow down said Santa Ana River into the mouth of their ditch, for the purpose of irrigation and domestic use; that the defendants and each of them (plaintiff's predecessors in interest and hereinafter designated "Riverside”) shall, at all times suffer and be required to let sufficient water, at all times, pass their canal or canals, in said river, to equal together with the eighty inches rising below their said canal the full amount of three hundred inches of water, measured under a four inch pressure, at and in the mouth of (Jurupa’s) ditch; that (Riverside) be restrained and perpetually enjoined from diverting the water of said Santa Ana River in excess of so much as will, as aforesaid, constitute and make a continuous flow of water into (Jurupa’s) ditch of three hundred inches of water, measured under a four inch pressure, . . . . ”