Albonico v. Madera Irrigation District
| Decision Date | 24 January 1957 |
| Citation | 306 P.2d 894,47 Cal.2d 695 |
| Parties | Phillip ALBONICO and Jane E. Albonico, his wife, Petitioners and Respondents, v. MADERA IRRIGATION DISTRICT, a Corporation, and John M. Allen, C. A. Ridgeway, Allen T. Roberts, Dee V. Romans, John A. Franchi, Directors of the Madera Irrigation District, Respondents and Appellants. Sac. 6460. |
| Court | California Supreme Court |
David E. Peckinpah, Denver C. Peckinpah, Fresno, Harold M. Child, Selma, and L. N. Barber, Fresno, for appellants.
Edmund G. Brown, Atty. Gen., B. Abbott Goldberg and Adolphus Moskovitz, Deputy Attys. Gen., Horton & Knox, Harry W. Horton, R. J. Knox, Jr., El Centro, Frank E. Jenney, Los Angeles, Ronald B. Harris, Fresno, P. J. Minasian, Oroville, and Martin McDonough, Sacramento, as amici curiae on behalf of appellants.
Green, Green, Plumley & Kuney, Denslow B. Green, Madera, and Kenneth A. Kuney, Tulare, for respondents.
Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, Herman Phleger, Alvin J. Rockwell and John M. Naff, Jr., San Francisco, as amici curiae on behalf of respondent.
This is an appeal from a judgment for the petitioners Phillip and Jane E. Albonico, husband and wife, in a proceeding for the writ of mandate to compel the respondent Madera Irrigation District to vacate its resolution denying the exclusion from the District of the petitioners' lands in excess of 320 acres. Exclusion is sought on the ground that such excess lands would not be benefited by the operations of the District. Water Code, §§ 26728, 26729; Code Civ.Proc. § 1085.
A brief history of the Madera Irrigation District from the time of its inception is set forth in the companion case, Madera Irrigation District v. All Persons, Cal., 306 P.2d 824. That case involved the validity of the contract entered into by and between the District and the United States acting through its Bureau of Reclamation of the Department of the Interior for the sale and distribution of water for irrigating purposes to the landowners in the District. Among other provisions of the contract considered in that case were the socalled acreage limitations and enforced sales provisions. In substance it was provided that a single person owning in excess of 160 acres and a married couple in excess of 320 acres are 'large land owners'; that large landowners shall, within 30 days after notice to do so, select the 160 or 320 acres, as the case may be, of his or their lands to be deemed non-excess; that if a large landowner fails to make such selection the District may do so for him and if the District does not do so, the Secretary of the Department of the Interior of the United State may do so, and that no water may be furnished by the District to excess lands unless and until the non-excess portions thereof have been selected and the landowner has executed a recordable contract to sell or authorize the Secretary of the Interior to sell within ten years the excess lands at an appraised sum which the landowner has no voice in determining and without regard to water rights involved in the irrigation project contemplated by the District and the United States.
Following a hearing on the 15th of April, 1951, at which the action of the board of directors of the District was reviewed and other evidence was received, the court made findings to the effect that the entire operations of the District in relation to the lands of the petitioners would be pursuant to the contract with the United States which, by sections 28, 29 and 30, did not contemplate the delivery of water to the petitioners' excess lands unless they agreed to sell such lands; that 'except as to 320 acres thereof, the said lands of the petitioners sought to be excluded would not be benefitied by the operations of the Madera Irrigation District'; that 'no evidence was introduced' tending to show that such lands would be benefited, and that at the hearing before the board of directors of the District prior to its resolution denying the petition for exclusion there 'was no evidence * * * to support (its) finding of fact that lands of the petitioners would be benefited by the operations of the Madera Irrigation District.'
Judgment was entered in the alternative, first, 'that if the general plan of operation of the Madera Irrigation District, as adopted and applied by the Board of Directors of the District, should continue or require compliance with the excess land conditions or...
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...Parties, 47 Cal.2d 699, 306 P.2d 875; Madera Irrigation District v. All Persons, 47 Cal.2d 681, 306 P.2d 886; Albonico v. Madera Irrigation District, 47 Cal.2d 695, 306 P.2d 894. Specifically involved are parts of two statutory enactments: Section 5 of the Reclamation Act of 1902,2 pro- vid......
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Ivanhoe Irr. Dist. v. All Parties and Persons
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Albonico v. Madera Irrigation District
...acres excluded from the boundaries of the District. On appeal to this court, in the prior opinion of this court (Albonico v. Madera Irr. Dist., 47 Cal.2d 695, 306 P.2d 894) because of its determination in the Ivanhoe (Ivanhoe Irrigation District v. All Parties, 47 Cal.2d 597, 306 P.2d 824) ......