South Boise Water Co. v. McDonald

296 P. 591, 50 Idaho 409, 1931 Ida. LEXIS 26
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 27, 1931
DocketNo. 5614.
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 296 P. 591 (South Boise Water Co. v. McDonald) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
South Boise Water Co. v. McDonald, 296 P. 591, 50 Idaho 409, 1931 Ida. LEXIS 26 (Idaho 1931).

Opinion

VARIAN, J.

Appellant brought this action to recover from respondent, the owner of a canal and water right furnishing water to certain lands in South Boise, $436 paid under protest as rental for carrying its water through the Ridenbaugh-Rossi Mill Ditch, for the year 1928 and a like sum for the same service in the year 1929. The complaint also prayed that respondent be enjoined from interfering with the diversion of water through the Drake-Miner and Porter Ditch and headgates. Appellant alleged a right to 400 inches of the waters of Boise River, measured under a four-inch pressure and appropriated through said last-named ditch with priority of date 1865. The answer denied generally the allegations of the complaint and plead res adjtidicata as a defense. Plaintiff appeals from a judgment for defendant. There is no dispute as to the facts, respondent relying upon his plea of res adjudicata.

On July 24, 1920, appellant and one M. Fitzpatrick, as plaintiffs, commenced an action in the third judicial district court, for Ada county, against William Ridenbaugh and Bird Calloway, defendants, wherein findings of fact, conclusions of law and judgment were entered from which no appeal was taken. In said action plaintiffs alleged that they were the owners of a water right of approximately 400 inches *411 measured under a four-inch .pressure taken from the south side of the Boise River through what is known as the Ridenbaugh-Rossi Mill Ditch, and also owners of a sufficient interest in said ditch to carry said 400 inches of water. The defendants in said action denied said allegations and affirmatively plead res adjudicata and also set up an order of the board of county commissioners of Ada county made pursuant to the provisions of C. S., sec. 5641 et seq., fixing maximum rates of compensation for the use of water from “Ridenbaugh Mill Ditch and Water Right” dated April 12, 1915, which order had not been appealed from and was in full force and effect. In said former action the court found there had been theretofore awarded said Ridenbaugh-Rossi Mill Ditch, for the irrigation of the lands under it, 460 inches of the waters of Boise River, with a priority date of June 1, 1865, for the irrigation of lands under said ditch, including the lands of the plaintiffs in said former action, in an action wherein the Farmers Co-operative Ditch Company was plaintiff and Riverside Irrigation District Ltd. and others were defendants, including W. H. Ridenbaugh and A. Rossi, the grantors and predecessors in interest of Bird Calloway. (Farmers’ Cooperative Ditch Co. v. Riverside Irr. Dist., 16 Ida. 525, 102 Pac. 481.) The court herein found that said “Ridenbaugh Mill Ditch and Water Right” is the ditch referred to as the “Ridenbaugh-Rossi Mill Ditch” in the amended complaint in the former action; that after said order of the board of county commissioners was made and before said former action was commenced the Ridenbaugh-Rossi Mill Ditch and water right was conveyed to Bird Calloway and that W. H. Ridenbaugh, one of the grantors, was made defendant in said former action under the name of William Ridenbaugh. By the findings and judgment in the former action it was ordered that Bird Calloway was the owner of said Ridenbaugh-Rossi Mill Ditch, and that neither of the plaintiffs therein owned any interest in, nor any right to convey water through said ditch, nor to have water delivered through said ditch except upon payment of a reasonable rental therefor.

*412 It was likewise adjudged in, said action that M. Fitzpatrick was the owner of the right to the use of nine-tenths of one cubic second-foot of the waters of Boise River, to be delivered through said Ridenbaugh-Rossi Mill Ditch at a point described therein; and that plaintiff, South Boise Water Company was the owner of the right to the use of seven and one-tenth cubic second-feet of water, to be diverted from said river and delivered through said canal at two certain lateral headgates diverting waters from the Ridenbaugh-Rossi Mill Ditch described in the said findings. The court in the instant case likewise found, upon sufficient evidence, that the reporter’s notes of the testimony of said former action were not on file with the clerk of the court as required by C. S., sec. 6559; that their whereabouts were unknown; that the causes of action in said former action and in the present action are the same, the South Boise Water Company, claiming in both actions the right to convey water, in substantially the same amount, under the same water right, to the same lands for the same purpose, and through and by means of the same ditch, without paying any rental therefor; and that judgment in said former action was rendered upon the merits; that plaintiff, South Boise Water Company, in the former action is the plaintiff in this action; that the defendant herein is in privity with defendant, Bird Calloway, in said former action, and the owner, in the possession, and entitled to the possession of said Ridenbaugh-Rossi Mill Ditch and water right by virtue of a deed executed and delivered since the rendition and entry of findings and judgment in said former action.

As conclusions of law the court held that the subject of the present action is res adjudicata; that appellant has acquiesced in the sum charged by respondent, viz., $436 annually for carrying water through the Ridenbaugh-Rossi Mill Ditch for the irrigation of lands owned by appellant’s stockholders for the years 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926 and 1927, and that said sum is a reasonable charge as such annual rental.

*413 Over objection, appellant was permitted to prove that its predecessors in interest took out a ditch on the south side of the Boise River known as the Drake-Miner and Porter Ditch, whereby in 1865, 400 inches of water measured under the four-inch pressure were carried to the lands now owned by appellant’s stockholders and put to a beneficial use; that in 1894, the predecessors in interest of respndent enlarged said ditch for the purpose of floating logs down to a sawmill owned by them and that appellant and its predecessors in interest continued to receive its 400 inches of water through said enlarged ditch. There is some further testimony to the effect that respondent’s predecessors were permitted to enlarge the Drake-Miner and Porter Ditch upon condition that its then owners might carry their water through said enlarged ditch free of charge. Appellant contends, that while there is but one ditch physically, viz., the Ridenbaugh-Rossi Mill Ditch, there are two ditches in law, i. e., the Drake-Miner and Porter Ditch and said Ridenbaugh-Rossi Mill Ditch (in which it claims no interest), and that having mistakenly impleaded the latter ditch in the former action, it can still maintain the present action upon the theory that the rights of appellant in the Drake-Miner and Porter Ditch were not adjudicated in said former action. We do not agree in this conclusion. Any right to carry water through respondent’s ditch claimed by appellant, both in this and the former action, is bottomed upon an appropriation made in 1865 of 400 inches of water diverted from Boise River through a ditch, — in this action the Drake-Miner and Porter Ditch, which the proof shows, was greatly enlarged in 1894 by respondent’s predecessors in interest. The enlarged ditch was thereafter known as the Ridenbaugh-Rossi Mill' Ditch.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
296 P. 591, 50 Idaho 409, 1931 Ida. LEXIS 26, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/south-boise-water-co-v-mcdonald-idaho-1931.