State of California v. Rank, 15840.
| Decision Date | 14 February 1962 |
| Docket Number | No. 15840.,15840. |
| Citation | 307 F.2d 96 |
| Parties | STATE OF CALIFORNIA, United States of America, et al., Appellants, v. Everett G. RANK et al., Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Stanley Mosk, Atty. Gen. of Cal., San Francisco, Cal., B. Abbott Goldberg, Deputy Director, Dept. of Water Resources for Cal., Sacramento, Cal., for appellants State of Cal. and Irrigation Districts.
Denver C. Peckinpah, Fresno, Cal., and Adolph Moskovitz, Sacramento, Cal., for appellant Madera Irrigation District.
Maddox & Abercrombie, and James K. Abercrombie, Visalia, Cal., for appellants Delano-Earliment, Exeter, Ivanhoe, Lindmore, Lindsay-Strathmore, Lower Tule River, Orange Cove, Porterville, Saucelito, Stone Corral, Terra Bella, and Tulare Irrigation Districts.
Irl Davis Brett, Los Angeles, Cal., and J. O. Reavis, Delano, Cal., for appellant Southern San Joaquin Municipal Utility Dist.
John H. Lauten, and Claude L. Rowe, Fresno, Cal., for appellee City of Fresno.
Before HAMLIN and MERRILL, Circuit Judges, and POWELL, District Judge.
We have granted rehearing to appellant irrigation and utility districts upon the question whether in the light of our opinion, 9 Cir., 293 F.2d 340, they should be dismissed from this case. They assert that their only interest in the subject matter of this action is through their contracts with the United States for the purchase of project water; that since we have ordered the United States dismissed, they too, in all consistency, should be dismissed.
There can be little doubt that absence of the United States and of the Secretary of the Interior has posed perplexing questions respecting the appropriateness of issues raised in the district court and respecting the effectiveness of the determination of those issues. However, all parties from the outset seem to have approached this litigation with the thought that it would provide a vehicle for disposing of disputes in which they were commonly interested. There can be no doubt that the districts had a real interest in the outcome and that those disputes were vigorously litigated. While the resolution of those disputes may be limited in effectiveness as res judicata due to the absence of certain interested parties, this seems no reason for ignoring the plain fact that the remaining parties actively sought their resolution as between themselves. For whatever future effectiveness these determinations may have, we feel they should not be wiped out (together with the years of active litigation which preceded them) by the dismissal of this group of litigants. Nor do we see any occasion to disturb the assessment of trial costs.
The districts assert that by the decree of physical solution entered below, judgment in effect has been rendered...
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