King v. Railroad Commission

THE COURT.

This is an application by way of writ of review to this court for an order reviewing and annulling an order of the Railroad Commission made and entered on April 26, 1922, increasing the rates for water to be paid by these petitioners to Sutter-Butte Canal Company for the service of water for irrigation supplied to the lands of these petitioners by said canal company.

The petitioners herein are the holders of contracts with the said Sutter-Butte Canal Company or its predecessors in the appropriation and supply of water for purposes of irrigation to the region in which the respective holdings of these petitioners are located. The petitioners King and Room set forth in substance in their said application that in the year 1905 they became the purchasers, respectively, from a certain corporation known as the California Irrigated Land Company, of certain described tracts of land in a certain colony known as Gridley Colony No. 2, in Butte County, which corporation was then the holder, as a subsidiary corporation, of the Butte County Canal Company, of a contract with said Butte County Canal Company, which provided that the Butte County Land Company would furnish water for irrigation to the lands in said colony in an amount to be required, not exceeding one cubic foot per second for each 160 acres, for which said land company agreed to pay to said water company annually at the rate of $1 per acre; that said water right thus created was to be appurtenant to the land upon which the water furnished thereunder was delivered and that thé said water charges, if unpaid, were to be a lien upon such land.

As to the applicants J. P. Hopkins and Hazel S. Hopkins, the application herein shows that in the year 1905 they were, and have since been, the owners of certain lots and parcels of land in certain other larger tracts in Butte County, which tracts were entitled, by virtue of location, to certain riparian rights in the waters of the Feather River, to a portion or share in which these particular applicants had a vested interest. They then allege and show that in that year they

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entered into a certain contract with the said Butte County Canal Company by which, for a consideration of $2,610 in money paid by them to the said canal company and of the grant of a right of way for a main canal across their said lands, they received from said canal company a contract for the delivery of water on their said lands at the annual rate of $1 per acre, which said contract was otherwise in substantially the same form as that in which the applicants King and Room had acquired a beneficial interest by virtue of their purchases of their holdings in the Gridley Colony No. 2.