City of Chino v. Superior Court of Orange County
| Decision Date | 07 November 1967 |
| Citation | 255 Cal.App.2d 747,63 Cal.Rptr. 532 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | CITY OF CHINO et al., Petitioners, v. SUPERIOR COURT OF ORANGE COUNTY, Respondent, ORANGE COUNTY WATER DISTRICT, Real Party in Interest. The UNITED STATES of America, Petitioner, v. SUPERIOR COURT OF ORANGE COUNTY, Respondent, ORANGE COUNTY WATER DISTRICT, Real Party in Interest. Civ. 8788, 8793. |
Clayson, Stark, Rothrock & Mann, Donald D. Stark, George G. Grover, Corona, Best, Best & Krieger, Arthur L. Littleworth, Riverside, McDonough, Holland, Schwartz, Allen & Wahrhaftig, Martin McDonough, Sacramento, Surr & Hellyer, John B. Surr, San Bernardino, Green & Green, Denslow B. Green, Madera, Kronick, Moskovitz & Vanderlaan, Adolph Moskovitz, Sacramento, Higgs, Jennings, Fletcher & Mack, Paul D. Engstrand, San Diego, Leland J. Thompson, Redwine & Sherrill, Maurice C. Sherrill, Riverside, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, G. Edward Fitzgerald, Los Angeles, Horton, Knox, Carter & Rutherford, Reginald L. Knox, El Centro, Stanford D. Herlick, County Counsel, Orange County, M. Crane Kitchel, Asst. County Counsel, Lonergan & Jordan, Donald W. Jordan, San Bernardino, Nichols, Stead, Boileau & Lamb, Raymond G. Lamb, Pomona, McCabe & Saevig, Roger A. Saevig, Camarillo, Allard, Shelton & O'Connor, Eugene Axelrod, Pomona, Taylor & Smith, Edward F. Taylor, San Bernardino, Robert Timlin, City Atty., Corona, Garst & Dilworth James W. Dilworth, Riverside, for petitioners City of Chino and others.
Edwin L. Weisl, Jr., Asst. U.S. Atty. Gen., Roger P. Marquis, David R. Warner, Walter Kiechel, Jr. and Martin Green, Attys., Dept. of Justice, William Matthew Byrne, Jr., U.S. Atty., and James R. Akers, Jr., Asst. U.S. Atty., for petitioner United States.
Rutan & Tucker, Milford W. Dahl and James E. Erickson, Santa Ana, Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, James Michael, San Francisco, William C. Miller, Los Angeles, Robert M. Westberg and Noble K. Gregory, San Francisco, for real party in interest.
Certain of the defendants in an action (#117628) pending in the respondent court have petitioned for a writ of prohibition directed to respondent against the further prosecution of said action; and for a writ of mandate that respondent sustain demurrers filed to the complaint in said action, grant motions to strike portions of the complaint; order that the real party in interest give notice of the pendency of the action to all persons it purports to represent as plaintiff; and order that certain interrogatories be answered. Among the petitioners are the City of Riverside, the City of Redlands, the City of Colton and the City of San Bernardino.
In a separate proceeding the United States of America, another defendant in the same action, has petitioned for a writ of prohibition against the further prosecution of the action so far as the United States is concerned. The two proceedings have been consolidated.
The real party in interest, the plaintiff in action #117628, is Orange County Water District (OCWD), a public corporation created and existing under the statutes of 1933, chapter 924, page 2400, as amended from time to time (Water Code Appendix, Chapter 40).
The complaint in the action in the respondent Court is captioned: 'Complaint for General Adjudication of Water Rights and Injunctive Relief.'
The central question posed is whether the action is indeed one for a general adjudication of water rights in the Santa Ana River system, for it is only if the action is for a general adjudication of water rights of a river system that the United States has given its consent to be joined as a defendant.
The complaint alleges that the action 'is brought, maintained and prosecuted for the benefit of the District and also of all riparian, overlying and other landowners, water users and inhabitants within the plaintiff District.'
The defendants who have appeared in the action number some 2,550, including 11 cities and two counties. Certain of the defendants are alleged to be owners of land overlying portions of either or both the Upper Basin and the Middle Basin of the Santa Ana River; it is alleged that others have taken, pumped, appropriated, and diverted water from either or both said Upper Basin and Middle Basin.
The complaint sought, among other relief, that the right if any of each defendant to the water of the Santa Ana River system be fixed and determined.
In addition to the Upper Basin and the Middle Basin, the Santa Ana River system is made up of the Lower Basin. This division of the system into three major basins was the result of a finding made by the trial court in an earlier action brought by OCWD against the cities of Riverside, Redlands, Colton and San Bernardino, appeals from the judgment in which are reported (Orange County Water District v. City of Riverside) in volume 173, California Appellate Reports, 2d series, page 137 (343 P.2d 450), and (Orange County Water District v. City of Riverside) in volume 188 at page 566 (10 Cal.Rptr. 899).
The description of the river system and of the three major basins set forth in the reported decision in volume 173 is adopted and set forth in the complaint in action #117628.
The Lower Basin, 'so far as it consists of arable land,' is wholly occupied by the Orange County Water District, which lies wholly within, but is not co-extensive with, the County of Orange.
In the earlier action, to which reference has been made, OCWD, on behalf only of the owners of agricultural lands within the District overlying the Lower Basin of the river system, sued only the four cities of Riverside, Redlands, Colton and San Bernardino. It sought and obtained a judgment defining the extent of the prescriptive rights of each of the four upstream cities to take water from the river system in diminution of the rights of the downstream overlying and riparian owners in the Lower Basin. Because of the failure of OCWD in that earlier suit to join as defendants all claimants to prescriptive rights to water from the Upper and Middle Basins, many questions were left unanswered. Among them was the full extent of the water rights of the four cities, since in addition to the prescriptive rights asserted by each of them, some or all of the four cities had acquired additional rights by condemnation or purchase from the former owners of prescriptive rights or of rights based upon ownership of overlying or riparian lands. 1
Also unsettled was the extent of the rights of individual claimants within the District, and the aggregate of the rights of any class of claimants within the District other than overlying agricultural owners. 2
Since no findings were made in the former actions as to the rights of individual claimants or other classes of claimants, it was held that the judgment inured only in favor of those on whose behalf it was brought, the overlying agricultural owners. 3
However, the opinion in the earlier case noted that there had been evidence before the trial court that would have permitted it to:
* * * adjudicate the prescriptive rights of those appropriators of water within the District, whose annual drafts of water, for a long time back have been shown and are even set out in the trial court's amended finding XIII.' (Orange County Water Dist. v. City of Riverside, 188 Cal.App.2d 566, 573, 10 Cal.Rptr. 899, 904).
and that:
'(U)nder the complaint, as drawn, counsel might have gone as far as they chose in introducing the evidence of the prescriptive rights of the cities within the District and of others using water within the District such as the companies taking water below the Prado Dam, and, indeed, of any or all water users within the District having any water rights.'
In action #117628, OCWD returns to the attack, this time marshals the forces of all owners of water rights and of all inhabitants of the District, designedly directing its fire not only against the four defendant cities in the former action but against all claimants, owners and users within the Upper Basin and the Middle Basin. It does not, however, join as defendants certain appropriators that divert water from points upstream of the District's boundaries but within the Lower Basin, nor any claimants or users owning lands within the Lower Basin but outside the District, if there be such.
The complaint alleges:
and:
'The subject matter and questions involved in this action are of common and general interest to the many owners of land within the plaintiff District and bordering upon and riparian to the Santa Ana River and to the many owners of land overlying, and users of water in, the hereinafter-mentioned District Basin, and to the inhabitants of the District.'
The petitioners in the consolidated proceedings contend that OCWD does not have the capacity to sue on behalf of the individual owners of water rights within the District; that the action considered as a class action in fact involves the rights of several classes having conflicting interests; that the court has no jurisdiction over the United States of America because the complaint does not seek an adjudication of the nature and extent of...
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