Sutter Butte Canal Co. v. Superior Court of Butte County

OLNEY, J.

This is an application for a writ of prohibition. The petitioner is a public utility corporation engaged in the business of selling and distributing water largely, if not entirely, for irrigation. By its articles of incorporation it was authorized to engage in this business in the counties of Butte and Sutter. Prior to the present year there were some fifty-eight thousand acres of land, mostly, if not all,' in Butte County, to which water was furnished by it. In the fall of last year, the Railroad Commission authorized the company to obligate itself to supply some fourteen thousand four hundred acres more of land, all in Sutter County. Pursuant to such authority, the petitioner did so obligate itself by contract with the owners of these lands, and has extended its work so as to supply them at a cost which the commission finds to have been between two hundred thousand dollars and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. No objection to this was made at the time by the old consumers of the Water Company, but it may be that they were unaware of the application for authority, although notice of the application was published in the newspapers circulating in Butte County, and the commission finds that the construction of the additional works by the company and its intention to serve thereby additional land was a matter of common knowledge in the county.

The last winter was an exceedingly dry one, and by spring it became evident that there would be a general water shortage. Representatives of the old consumers thereupon filed a complaint with the Railroad Commission setting forth that they were old consumers of the company, that the company was intending to take on some fourteen thousand four hundred acres of additional land, that there was a shortage of water and the company would not be able to supply both the lands of the old consumers and the new lands, and asking that the company be ordered not to supply the contemplated additional lands. The owners of the latter lands intervened in the proceeding, so that ‘all parties in interest were represented. After a hearing, the commission denied

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the complaint and directed the Water Company to deliver water for the new lands without discrimination between it and the lands previously supplied. (See Stats. 1913, p. 84; Deering’s General Laws, Act 4348a.)