Live Oak Water Users Ass v. Railroad Commission of State of California

• Citation: 46 S.Ct. 149,269 U.S. 354,70 L.Ed. 305
• Decision Date: 04 January 1926
• Docket Number: No. 73,73
• Parties: LIVE OAK WATER USERS' ASS'N et al. v. RAILROAD COMMISSION OF STATE OF CALIFORNIA et al
• Court: United States Supreme Court

269 U.S. 354

46 S.Ct. 149

70 L.Ed. 305

LIVE OAK WATER USERS' ASS'N et al.

v RAILROAD COMMISSION OF STATE OF CALIFORNIA et al.

No. 73.

Argued Oct. 22, 1925.

Decided Jan. 4, 1926.

Mr. F. S. Brittain, of San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiffs in error.

Mr. Carl I. Wheat, of San Francisco, Cal., for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice McREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Sutter-Butte Canal Company, a public service corporation of California, has long supplied water for irrigation in the Sacramento Valley. Before 1913 petitioners or their predecessors severally contracted with it for water to be used during long terms, on definitely described parcels of land, at prices based upon their total areas, at specified rates per acre, whether actually consumed or not. Payment of the stipulated sums was secured by liens on the entire tracts; rights so acquired were appurtenant to the land, and constituted a servitude upon the water. Other stipulations concerned lateral ditches etc. Those who held these agreements are referred to as contract customers. Other parties-noncontract customers-were supplied and charged according to number of acres actually irrigated from year to year.

In 1918 the Railroad Commission permitted a general increase of rates, but gave contract customers somewhat lower ones than those prescribed for others. Thereafter the company continued to demand and receive from all contract customers yearly sums, reckoned according to entire acreage.

April 26, 1922, the Commission granted another increase of rates, again giving lower ones to contract customers. Plaintiffs in error obtained from the court below a review of this order. Their petition therefor asked:

'That upon such review such order and decision of said Railroad Commission be annulled and set aside, in so far as the same makes provision for the collection of rates upon any acreage other than that upon which water may be desired by these petitioners.'

That court first held the challenged order produced unlawful inequalities between contract and noncontract customers, contrary to the law of the state, and therefore should be set aside. 65 Cal. Dec. 69. Having granted a rehearing, it declared the inequalities were not unreasonable, and affirmed the order. 192 Cal. 132, 219 P. 65.

The cause is here upon writ of error. Considering the circumstances disclosed by the record, we have no jurisdiction, unless it affirmatively appears that in the court below there was duly drawn in question the validity of a statute of or an authority exercised under the state, because or repugnance to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United States. Judicial Code, § 237, as amended September 6, 1916 (Comp. St. § 1214). Under repeated rulings here, for jurisdictional purposes the order of the Commission must be treated as though an act of the Legislature. Lake Erie & West. R. R. Co. v. State Public Utilities Commission ex rel. Cameron, 249 U. S. 422, 424, 39 S. Ct. 345, 63 L. Ed. 684, and cases there cited. The brief for plaintiffs in error declares:

'The plaintiffs in error maintain that by the judgment of the Supreme Court of California the obligations of their contracts have been impaired, that their property has been taken without due process of law, that they have been denied the equal protection of the laws, and that the California court has denied and renounced its power to protect the plaintiffs in error in their claims of rights, privileges, and immunities secured by the Constitution of the United States.'

This statement shows no jurisdiction here under the writ of error, although it specifies a federal question justiciable by certiorari. Something more than a claim of federal right is necessary; the attack must be upon the validity of the order, not merely upon the court's judgment.

The brief further states that by the application to the Railroad Commission for rehearing, and in the petition to the Supreme Court of California for review, plaintiffs in error set up their federal claims. No citations to the record accompany this statement, as our rules require. Rule 25, 2(c). A claim merely presented to the Commission upon application for rehearing would not suffice to give us jurisdiction. It must have been definitely brought to the court's attention. Although a copy of the request for rehearing addressed to the Commission is annexed to the petition to the Supreme Court, this petition made no claim under the federal Constitution with sufficient definiteness for us to say that the court's attention was challenged thereto. Neither opinion of the court shows that it considered or necessarily passed upon any such question. After the...