Laycock v. Lake Chelan Reclamation Dist.

• Decision Date: 04 May 1923
• Docket Number: 17293.
• Citation: 214 P. 1054,124 Wash. 544
• Parties: LAYCOCK et al. v. LAKE CHELAN RECLAMATION DIST. et al.
• Court: Washington Supreme Court

214 P. 1054

124 Wash. 544

LAYCOCK et al. v. LAKE CHELAN RECLAMATION DIST. et al.

No. 17293.

Supreme Court of Washington

May 4, 1923

Department 2.

Appeal from Superior Court, Chelan County; Wm. A. Grimshaw, Judge.

Action by J. R. Laycock and others against the Lake Chelan Reclamation District and others, to have the lands of plaintiffs excluded from the district, and assessments thereon declared void. From a judgment denying the right to have the lands excluded, but canceling the assessments complained of, defendants appeal. Affirmed.

Charles R. Sargent, of Chelan, and Bronson, Robinson & Jones, of Seattle, for appellants.

Carroll B. Graves, of Seattle, and Barrows & Hanna, of Wenatchee, for respondents.

MAIN, C.J.

The plaintiffs brought this action to have excluded from an irrigation district certain land owned by them therein, ans also for the purpose of having assessments levied thereon by the district canceled and declared to be void. The cause was tried to the court without a jury, and resulted in a judgment denying the right to have the land excluded, but canceling the assessments complained of. From this judgment the defendants appeal.

The Lake Chelan reclamation district (which will be referred to as though it were the only appellant) is a corporation organized under the law of this state, which provides for the creation of irrigation districts, and defines their power and the method of operation. The appellant district was organized in the fall of 1919 for the purpose of taking over a private water system by which most of the land now within the district was to be supplied with water for irrigation. In order to have a better understanding of the situation it will be necessary to go into the previous history a little. The Lake Chelan Land Company, a corporation, formerly owned practically all of the irrigable land in the district, also the water rights for the irrigation thereof. That company constructed an irrigation system, and subsequently formed the Lake Chelan Water Company, a corporation, to take over the ownership and management of the system. The land company conveyed to the water company the physical system, together with water rights, in return for the entire capital stock of the water company. Each share of stock in the latter company was made appurtenant to an acre of land to be irrigated, thus providing for each acre of the Lake Chelan Land Company under the water system a water right entitling it to a specified amount of water per annum. Land was purchased from the land company by various persons, and along with it each received the ownership of appurtenant stock in the water company. Subsequently the owners of the land and the water rights appurtenant thereto concluded to form an irrigation district embracing substantially the same land watered by the water company system. The respondents' land was included within the district, but there was no water right appurtenant thereto, as it had been purchased from the land company without such right, and they held no stock in the water company. On May 4, 1920, after the appellant district was organized, the water company conveyed to the district the entire water system, and the deed of conveyance recites that the stockholders of the water company who were the land owners who had appurtenant water rights had unanimously by resolution authorized and directed the conveyance of all the assets of the water company to the irrigation district. On June 1, 1920, the directors of the irrigation district passed a resolution to the effect that the value of the full water right under the irrigation district was $110 per acre, plus bond issues and assessments that all lands having such right be credited with the value thereof, namely, $110 per acre; and that any lands in the district not having a water right, which would be the respondents' lands, should pay to the district $110 per acre. This amounted, in other words, to an assessment of $110 per acre upon all the land and a credit for an...