San Joaquin Kings River Canal Irrigation Company v. County of Stanislaus

• Decision Date: 27 April 1914
• Docket Number: No. 303,303
• Citation: 233 U.S. 454,34 S.Ct. 652,58 L.Ed. 1041
• Parties: SAN JOAQUIN & KINGS RIVER CANAL & IRRIGATION COMPANY, Incorporated, Appt., v. COUNTY OF STANISLAUS, in the State of California, et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

233 U.S. 454

34 S.Ct. 652

58 L.Ed. 1041

SAN JOAQUIN & KINGS RIVER CANAL & IRRIGATION COMPANY, Incorporated, Appt.,

v COUNTY OF STANISLAUS, in the State of California, et al.

No. 303.

Argued March 18, 1914.

Decided April 27, 1914.

Messrs. Edward F. Treadwell, Garret W. McEnerney, Frank H. Short, Aldis B. Browne, and Alexander Britton for appellant.

Messrs. James P. Langhorne, L. J. Maddux, Parker S. Maddux, Denver S. Church, M. F. McCormick, and H. S. Shaffer for appellees.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 455-458 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a bill to restrain the enforcement of orders passed by the boards of supervisors of the three defendant counties, Stanislaus, Fresno, and Merced, establishing water rates to be charged by the plaintiff, the appellant; the ground of the bill being that the orders deprive the plaintiff of its property without due process of law. By a statute of March 12, 1885, the boards are authorized to fix these rates for their several counties, but so that the returns to the parties furnishing the water shall be not less than 6 per cent upon the value of the 'canals, ditches, flumes, chutes, and all other property actually used and useful to the appropriation and furnishing of such water.' The rates when fixed are binding for one year and until established anew or abrogated. The bill concerns rates fixed in 1907, and the question before the court has been narrowed to a single issue. If the plaintiff is entitled to 6 per cent upon its tangible property alone it is agreed that the orders must stand. But if the plaintiff has water rights that are to be taken into account, the rates fixed will fall short of giving it what it is entitled to and must be set aside. The circuit court dismissed the bill (191 Fed. 875), and on this appeal figures are immaterial, the only question being whether the principle adopted is right.

It was suggested, to be sure, at the argument, that it does not appear that the plaintiff offered any evidence as to water rights at the hearing before the supervisors, and therefore that it ought not to be allowed to complain now that nothing was allowed for them. But this evidently is an afterthought. In general, a party may wait until a law is passed or regulation is made, and then insist upon his constitutional rights. Prentis v. Atlantic Coast Line Co. 211 U. S. 210, 227, 229, 53 L. ed. 150, 159, 160, 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 67. This we understand to be the view of the California courts as to these very boards. Spring Valley Waterworks v. San Francisco, 82 Cal. 286, 315, 6 L.R.A. 756, 16 Am. St. Rep. 116, 22 Pac. 910, 1046; San Diego Water Co. v. San Diego, 118 Cal. 558, 564, 38 L.R.A. 460, 62 Am. St. Rep. 261, 50 Pac. 633. Moreover, as the defendants contend that the plaintiff is entitled to no compensation for water rights, to offer evidence would have been an idle form.

It is not disputed that the plaintiff has a right as against riparian proprietors to withdraw the water that it distributes through its canals. Whether the right was paid for, as the plaintiff says, or not, it has been confirmed by prescription and is now beyond attack. It is not disputed, either, that if the plaintiff were the owner of riparian lands to which its water was distributed, it would have a property in the water that could not be taken without compensation. But it is said that as the plaintiff appropriates this water to distribution and sale, it thereby dedicates it to public use under California law, and so loses its private right in the same. It appears to us that when the cases cited for this proposition are pressed to the conclusion reached in the present case, they are misapplied. No doubt it is true that such an appropriation and use of the water...