Butte Cty. Water Users' Ass'n v. R.R. Comm'n

185 Cal. 218
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 28, 1921
DocketSac. No. 3111
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 185 Cal. 218 (Butte Cty. Water Users' Ass'n v. R.R. Comm'n) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Butte Cty. Water Users' Ass'n v. R.R. Comm'n, 185 Cal. 218 (Cal. 1921).

Opinions

OLNEY, J.

This is an application by an association of those consumers of the Sutter Butte Canal Company, who were consumers prior to 1920, to annul an order of the Railroad Commission that, beginning with the year 1920, that company serve with water some fourteen thousand four hundred acres of land not theretofore served by it. The company was organized as, and has always been, a public utility company supplying water for irrigation, and its articles of incorporation empower it to sell and distribute water in the counties of Butte and Sutter. It takes its water from the Feather River near Oroville, in Butte County, and its water rights, which are appropriation rights, are all for water for public sale and distribution. From a comparatively small beginning the system of the company was extended and enlarged gradually as the market for its water grew until in 1919 it was supplying some fifty-five thousand, or slightly more, acres of land, mostly in Butte County. In September of that year the company contracted with the owners of fourteen thousand four hundred acres of land in Sutter County that it would extend its system to supply their lands, and pursuant to this contract the company made the necessary enlargements and extensions of its system, at a cost to it of between two hundred thousand dollars and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The making of this contract, the enlargement and extension of the company’s system, and the purpose of the company to serve the fourteen thousand four hundred acres of additional lands were, the commission finds, a mat[221]*221ter of common knowledge in the region served by the company. Nevertheless, no objection was made to the company so doing. The company’s rules require that applications for water for the ensuing year be filed by the first of January, and by that date in 1920 the owners of the fourteen thousand four hundred acres had filed their applications and paid the company’s regular charge. The three preceding winters had been winters of light rainfall, and the winter of 1919-20 was exceptionally dry, so that by spring it became evident that there was a serious danger of a water shortage. The company’s old consumers, through the instrumentality of their association known as the Butte County Water Users’ Association, thereupon filed a complaint with the commission against the company, alleging in brief that the company would not have water enough to irrigate both their lands and the fourteen thousand four hundred acres of additional lands, and asking for an order of the commission directing the company not to supply the latter. The company answered the complaint, and the owners of the fourteen thousand four hundred acres on their part organized themselves into an association known as the Sutter County Water Users’ Association, and intervened in the proceeding, alleging that they had been accepted by the company as consumers, and in reliance thereon they had prepared their lands at large expense for the raising of rice by irrigation, and asking for an order from the commission directing the company to serve them. The owners of certain of the fourteen thousand four hundred acres also intervened in their individual capacities in opposition to the complaint of the old consumers.

The matter was promptly heard and decided by the commission, its order being handed down on April 21, 1920. At that time, of course, it was not possible to know with exactness just what water conditions during the summer to come would be. The commission’s decision finds that the fourteen thousand four hundred acres were within the area which the water company was organized to serve and for serving which it had made its water appropriations; that in a normal year the company’s supply of water was adequate for the needs of the fourteen thousand four hundred acres as well as for those of the lands theretofore served; that at the time the contract between the company [222]*222and the owners of the fourteen thousand four hundred acres for the supply of those lands was made, and at the time the applications of those owners for service were pre-' sented and accepted, it was reasonable to expect that the company would have a sufficient supply for all during the ensuing year, and the company was justified in accepting the applications. The critical month in supplying water by the company’s system, that is, the month when the demands for irrigation are most apt to approach or exceed the available supply, is the month of August. The commission found that at the time of hearing, that is, in April, it appeared that the company would, so far as could be determined, have in August sufficient water from its then existing supply to irrigate seventy thousand acres (all the land) for from eighty to ninety per cent of the time, and in addition could obtain a further substantial quantity under a. water right which it had recently obtained for the diversion from the Feather River of some additional five hundred second-feet. Upon the facts so found, the commission held in effect that the owners of the fourteen thousand four hundred acres had the status of consumers of the company and were entitled to be served, and made its order that they be served on an equal basis with the company’s other consumers. The reasons of public policy underlying its decision, the commission states as follows:

“It would be uneconomical, and would retard the development of this state if an irrigation company were restricted in its delivery of water to only that area for which it would have a sufficient supply in the driest years. A restriction such as this would prevent the cultivation of large areas of land which would otherwise be cultivated and produce a crop a very large proportion of the time. As a matter of fact, years of drought such as this do not ordinarily occur more frequently than from ten to twenty year periods, and it would be unjustly restricting the expansion of the agricultural pursuits of the state if a company were permitted to serve only the area for which it would have available water during years of extreme drought and consequent minimum water supply.
“Applicants applying to a utility for an extension of service, whose applications are accepted in good faith by the utility at a time when it could reasonably expect to [223]*223have available a sufficient supply of water in addition to that needed for the lands theretofore served, should in justice receive their ratable proportion of the available supply if a shortage occurs, even though that shortage may occur prior to the actual delivery of any water to them.”

After the decision, the old consumers petitioned the commission for a rehearing, and, being refused, commenced the present proceeding before this court for the annulment of the commission’s order. The contentions of the petitioner are three in number. The first, as stated by its counsel, is as follows:

“The orders of the Railroad Commission do not make any provision for the supplying of prior consumers before the fourteen thousand four hundred acres are taken care of. On the contrary, said orders specifically direct the Sutter Butte Canal Company to prorate the available supply in the event of a shortage. The effect of this order is to deprive petitioners of property without due process of law and without compensation.”

Assuming that the owners of the fourteen thousand four hundred acres had entered into relationship with the company as consumers, the ground so stated is not so much an attack on the commission’s order as it is on the validity of a statute adopted by the legislature.

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Bluebook (online)
185 Cal. 218, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/butte-cty-water-users-assn-v-rr-commn-cal-1921.