Bledsoe v. Decrow (1901) · DecisionDepot

Bledsoe v. Decrow

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

California Supreme Court Mar 22, 1901 No. L.A. No. 745.Published

Before: Cooper

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Holding. The court affirmed an order granting a new trial based on the trial court's discretion regarding the sufficiency of the evidence, while noting that the trial court lacked the authority to impose conditions on the new trial that substituted different water rights for those established by prior appropriation.

Issues

Whether the trial court abused its discretion in granting a motion for a new trial based on the insufficiency of the evidence.
Whether the trial court had the legal authority to condition the denial of a new trial on the parties accepting different water rights than those established by prior appropriation.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The rule is well settled that a motion for a new trial on the ground of the insufficiency of the evidence to justify the verdict, or other decision, is addressed to the sound legal discretion of the court”

“We do not think the court had the right to have plaintiffs give defendants, or either of them, less water than the evidence shows they are entitled to.”

“The rights of the parties, as against each other, should be definitely settled.”

Synopsis

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of San Bernardino County granting a .new trial. John L. Campbell, Judge.

The facts are stated in the opinion.

COOPER,C.

—This action was brought by plaintiffs for the purpose of having it adjudged that they are the owners of the right to take and divert, at the point described in the complaint, the waters of the Mojave River to the extent of six hundred inches, measured under a four-inch pressure, and that defendants have no right, title, or interest to said six hundred inches.

The defendants, by their different answers, claimed by prior appropriation certain portions of the waters of said river. The court filed findings of fact, upon which judgment was entered for plaintiffs for the amount of water claimed, with certain exceptions and reservations. It was found that defendants Julius E. Meyer, Jr., Henry Meyer, Charles Meyer, and Julius Meyer, Sen., are the owners, as against the plaintiffs, of the right to 175 inches of the waters of said river, to be taken at the point designated in their answer. This finding is not attacked, and there is no appeal by plaintiffs as to said defendants Meyer, and no appeal by them.

The court found that defendants Davidson, Bemis, and Lane have a prior and superior right to divert, at the intake of their ditch where it is now situated, 230 inches, measured under a four-inch pressure; that defendants Decrow and Van Horn have a prior right to divert from said river, at the intake of their ditch where it is now situated, 400 inches, measured under a four-inch pressure. The plaintiffs made a motion for a new trial as to said defendants Davidson, Bemis, Lane, Decrow, and Van Horn, upon the ground, among others, of insufficiency of the evidence to justify the decision.

The motion was granted, and this appeal is from the said order. The rule is well settled that a motion for a new trial on the ground of the insufficiency of the evidence to justify the verdict, or other decision, is addressed to the sound legal discretion of the court, and that an order granting a new trial on

[314]

this ground will not he reversed on appeal, unless it appears that there was a manifest abuse.of such discretion.

(Bjorman

Fort Bragg Redwood Co.,

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We do not think the court had the right to have plaintiffs give defendants, or either of them, less water than the evidence shows they are entitled to. The court may have been correctly of the opinion that in taking the water from the river, and conducting it through open ditches, a large part of it was wasted by evaporation, or percolation through the lands over which the ditches run, and that 90 inches furnished Decrow and Van Horn would be fully as much as would ultimately reach their lands through the ditch. It may have correctly concluded that defendants Davidson, Bemis, and Lane would be benefited more by using 1,150 inches the first three days in every fifteen than by a continuous use of 230 inches. But it is not for the court to prescribe such conditions. The findings should state correctly the rights of defendants; and if they are the owners of part of the waters of the Mojave River by prior appropriation, the finding should show the correct number of inches so appropriated. The rights of the parties, as against each other, should be definitely settled. In a partition suit the court might be convinced that it would be best for one of the parties to give him a definite rental, either in money or part of the crops, but the court could not do this in lieu of the rights of the party to his land. In this case, if the defendants waste water in conducting it through their ditches, it may be that by pipes or otherwise they can hereafter save it, and thus have the full benefit of all they own. The appropriation must be for some useful or beneficial purpose. It may be conducted through ditches, flumes, or pipes. It may even.be turned into the channel of another stream, mingled with its waters, and then reclaimed, so long as the amount of water appropriated by another is not diminished. If defendants have appropriated more water than they use for beneficial purposes, or if they willfully waste it, the court has power to give proper relief, but to allow the plaintiffs to give to defendants a certain number of inches in lieu of the amount they have the right to as prior appropriators, would be to introduce a new rule as to water rights in this state.

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Synopsis

COOPER,C.

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