Arroyo Ditch & Water Co. v. Dorman

THE COURT.

This action was brought to quiet title to the Arroyo Ditch and to the waters diverted thereby from the Old San 'Gabriel River in Los Angeles County, and for an injunction to restrain defendants from interfering with said waters. The court, by its findings and decree, determined in effect that the defendants and plaintiff were tenants in common in the ditch and water involved in the suit, and, after

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setting out the rights and titles of the several parties in and to the property, decreed “that a permanent writ of injunction issue from this court, directed to the defendants and each of them, and the plaintiff, his and its successors in interest, agents and servants, requiring them and each of them to perpetually refrain from taking or diverting any greater portion of the said water than herein specifically adjudged to belong to him, her, or it.”

The defendants appeal from the judgment and from an order denying them a new trial.

The Arroyo Ditch has its head in the Old San Gabriel River, and conducts water from that stream for the irrigation of and domestic use upon some 3,950 acres of the Rancho Santa Gertrudes. This rancho has been divided up and sold out in small parcels of a few acres each, until, at the time of the commencement of this suit, ft seems that the twelve defendants herein owned each a several tract thereof, which several tracts amounted in the aggregate to 622 acres. At the same time the stockholders of the plaintiff corporation owned 3,328 acres of said rancho, each stockholder owning a small tract thereof. The Arroyo Ditch was constructed in 1869, and furnished water to the entire 3,950 acres of land, constituting the aggregate acreage of all the parties interested in this suit. In 1885 the owners of the numerous tracts of land already referred to, consisting of upwards of a hundred and fifty people, owned interests in the ditch and in the water diverted thereby as appurtenant to their land, each person’s interest corresponding to the acreage of his land as compared to the whole acreage watered by the ditch. In said year 1885-the great majority of the owners in said lands, ditch, and water concluded to form a corporation for the control, management, and distribution of said waters; and accordingly they entered into a contract to that end, and the corporation plaintiff was thereupon duly formed. About a hundred and fifty of the said owners received stock from the corporation, each person receiving as many shares as he had acres of land. And thereafter the corporation at once entered upon and continued in the control and management and distribution of the waters of said ditch, to the extent that its stockholders were interested therein. The defendants did not become stockholders, and took no interest in said corporation. In 1898