Silva v. Hawkins (1907) · DecisionDepot

Silva v. Hawkins

Name: California Superior Court Tentative Rulings
Creator: DecisionDepot
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

California Supreme Court Oct 3, 1907 No. Sac. No. 1399.Published

Before: McFarland, Beatty

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Holding. The court held that the trial court erred in admitting a prior judgment-roll as evidence of estoppel because the defendants were not parties or privies to the prior action, and the prior litigation did not involve the same property rights.

Issues

Whether a prior judgment-roll is admissible as evidence of estoppel against parties who were not involved in the prior litigation.
Whether the trial court erred in admitting a judgment-roll from a case involving different parties and different water rights.

Disposition. reversed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“A judgment cannot operate as an estoppel except where it is given in a cause between the same parties or their privies.”

“The defendants here are in no position to assert or invoke any right which might have been declared in the former action as between the parties hereto; they are neither the parties nor privies of parties to that action.”

“For this error the case must be reversed.”

Synopsis

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Opinion — McFARLAND

McFARLAND, J.

This is an action to quiet plaintiffs’ title to certain waters of the main fork of Greenhorn Creek in Siskiyou County, and of certain tributaries of said creek called Heybrook Gulch and Barker Gulch, and to have the relative and proportionate rights of the plaintiffs and defendants to such waters judicially determined and declared. The •case was tried without a jury and judgment was rendered in favor of defendants. Plaintiffs appealed from the judgment and from an order denying their motion for a new trial.

The plaintiffs are the owners of a water-ditch called the Cornish & Company ditch, which has its head in the main Greenhorn Creek, and runs on the northerly side of the creek down and across to the north fork of said creek, where the water that is carried by the ditch to said north fork is used by plaintiffs for mining purposes. Defendants are the owners of a placer mining claim called the Clark & Company

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claim, which is situated in the bed of the main fork of Greenhorn Creek, and over this mining claim passes the said Cornish & Company ditch. This ditch before reaching defendants’ mining claims passes across the said two tributaries of Greenhorn Creek and carries their waters, as well as the water of the main creek, to defendants’ mining claim. Defendants concede that plaintiffs have the right to carry over and across their mining claim all the waters flowing in this ditch during the night-time-—that is, from six o’clock p. m. to six o’clock A. m. of the next day; but they aver that defendants have the right to use upon their mining claim all the water flowing in said ditch during the daytime—that is, from six o’clock A. M. to six o’clock p. m. of each day—and deny that plaintiffs have any right to the use of any such water during the hours last above mentioned. The plaintiffs in their amended complaint admit that they have no right to the water of the main Greenhorn Creek during the daytime, but they aver that during all of the time, both night and day, they have the right to carry away in the ditch across and over defendants’ mining claim all the water which flows in the ditch from the said two gulches. And so the real controversy between the parties concerns only the waters of said Heybrook and Barker gulches.

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Concurrence — Beatty

BEATTY, C. J., concurring.

I concur in the judgment and in the opinion of Justice McFarland, which is fully supported by the ground upon which he holds that the superior court erred in overruling the objection to the admission in evidence of the judgment-roll in the case of Renner

Aze- ' vedo et al. There was, as the main opinion shows, no privity between the defendants and either of the parties in Renner

Azevedo, but there is even a stronger and more conclusive-reason for holding that the .judgment in that case can never operate as an estoppel in this ease. The right in litigation there had no sort of connection with the right in controversy here. There Renner, as trustee of the Bohnerts, was suing Azevedo and others (whose rights, such as they may have been,

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have never vested in these defendants) for a diversion of the waters of the main Greenhorn Creek above the head of the Cornish ditch, a diversion by which the owners of that ditch were deprived of their right to all the waters of the main branch naturally flowing to the head of their ditch between six o’clock p. m. and six o’clock A. m. A litigation of that controversy could by no possibility involve the rights of the owners of the Cornish ditch to the entire flow of the Heybrook and Barker gulches duritig the whole twenty-four hours, for the waters of those gulches naturally flowed into Greenhorn Gulch below the head of the ditch, and were intercepted by the ditch below its head. The only shadow of- a reason for the claim that any right to the waters of those gulches was involved in Renner

Azevedo is that the plaintiff in that action by way of description of his ditch used the language: “Was the owner and in possession of that certain water ditch known as the ‘Cornish Ditch’ which takes the waters of main Greenhorn Creek and gulches adjacent thereto, and conveys the same to the North Pork of said Greenhorn Creek.” This was a perfectly correct and proper description of the ditch for the purpose of the complaint and the judgment, but it did not tender any issue as to the rights of the plaintiff to the waters of the adjacent gulches, and when the complaint which follows this description is examined it appears that the only injury alleged is the diversion of the waters of Greenhorn Creek at a point to which the waters of the gulches never flowed and never will flow while the law of gravitation continues in force.

Henshaw, J., concurred.

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Synopsis

Opinion — McFARLAND

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Concurrence — Beatty

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