Wackerman Dairy, Inc. v. Wilson
| Decision Date | 21 October 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. 91-16515,91-16515 |
| Citation | 7 F.3d 891 |
| Parties | WACKERMAN DAIRY, INC., a California Corporation; Hollis E. Reimers, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. George G. WILSON, Angle Decree Water Master; Orland Unit Water Users' Association, a California Corporation; United States of America, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Stuart L. Somach, De Cuir and Somach, Sacramento, CA, for plaintiffs-appellants.
M. Anthony Soares, Minasian, Minasian, Minasian, Spruance, Baber, Meith & Soares, Oroville, CA, and Edward Shawaker, Attorney, Dept. of Justice, Washington, DC, for defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California.
Before: FLETCHER, REINHARDT, and NOONAN, Circuit Judges.
Hollis Reimers, owner of Black Butte Ranch, appeals the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of watermaster Wilson, the United States, and the Orland Unit Water Users' Association (OUWUA). 1
This litigation arises out of watermaster Wilson's application of the 1930 "Angle Decree" which determines the rights of the United States and some six hundred landholders in the Stony Creek watershed. Reimers, successor in interest to members of the Scearce family who were among the original parties to the decree, seeks a declaration of her water rights under the decree. What is at issue is the water to which she is entitled without payment to the government. The government admitted in oral argument that it possesses adequate water by reservation or acquisition of appropriation rights to fulfill whatever its obligations are to Reimers under the decree. Accordingly, the priorities of other parties to the decree are not affected
Reimers contends that the stipulation incorporated in the Angle Decree sets forth the method for calculating the amount of water to which she is entitled as a matter of contractual right. The United States and OUWUA contend that this contractual right is modified by other provisions of the decree which they assert support watermaster Wilson's application of the decree. The district court had jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2201 and the retained jurisdiction of the court set forth in United States v. Angle, Equity No. 30, Art. XVI ("Angle Decree"). It entered judgment as reported in United States v. Angle, 760 F.Supp. 1366 (E.D.Cal.1991). Our jurisdiction rests on 28 U.S.C. § 1291. The interpretation of a decree is subject to de novo review. United States v. Orr Water Ditch Co., 914 F.2d 1302, 1307 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 817, 111 S.Ct. 60, 112 L.Ed.2d 35 (1990). Because we conclude that Reimers' rights are contract-based and not limited by the appropriation rights of the United States, we reverse and remand.
The Stony Creek watershed is located northwest of Sacramento, California primarily in Tehama and Glenn Counties. Stony Creek flows northward from the mountains before turning east, passing by the town of Orland, to join the Sacramento River near Chico, California. The surrounding arid and semi-arid land depend on it for irrigation.
The waters of Stony Creek were first tapped in the second half of the nineteenth century at a time when settlers had just begun the drive to transform California from desert to grazing and farm lands. See Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert 2, 48, 53-54, 59, 108 (1986). In 1864 Laban Scearce and a neighbor constructed a diversion dam on Stony Creek and a ditch to divert water to their respective landholdings. At that time it was the intention of the builders to appropriate the waters of Stony Creek for the irrigation of all 416 acres of their land, 250 acres owned by the Scearce family, 166 by the neighbor. In the spring of 1864, twenty to thirty acres of the Scearce land were irrigated.
By 1904 the successors in interest to Laban Scearce and his neighbor, 2 by steady work, had increased substantially the number of irrigated acres served by the diversion works. The Scearce family and their neighbor entered into separate agreements with the Stony Creek Irrigation Company ("SCIC") to convey these works to the company in exchange for the SCIC "furnish[ing] water for all necessary purposes" to the Scearce and Hall lands. 1904 Agreement at 2; see Reisner, supra, at 108 (). The agreement stated that SCIC would deliver "125 inches of water measured under a four inch pressure, from the beginning of each irrigation season to the 15th of July of each year and 75 inches of water measured under a four inch pressure from the 15th day of July of each year to the end of the irrigation season." 1904 Agreement at 2. It was "in consideration" of this basic obligation to furnish water at two seasonally specified flow rates during the irrigation season that the Scearce family agreed to "grant, bargain, sell and convey ... all of their right, title and interest ... to water rights, and ditch, and right-of-way." Id. at 3. No specific mention was made of the extent of acreage to be served by this contractual water right. The Scearce land was designated simply in terms The Reclamation Act of 1902, 43 U.S.C. § 391 et seq., empowers the federal government to acquire water rights for the reclamation and irrigation of land like that served by Stony Creek. 3 Shortly after the passage of the Act the United States Reclamation Service of the Department of Interior embarked upon the Orland Reclamation Project. The United States obtained from the SCIC, by deed, the water rights, diversion works and ditches for the Orland Project. In both the 1907 purchase agreement and 1909 deed, the United States assumed, without reservation, the contractual obligations of the SCIC to provide water to the Hall and Scearce families.
of the quarter sections of the township in which the family owned land.
In 1918 the United States sought to adjudicate all rights to the waters of the Stony Creek watershed. Its amended complaint of 1923 indicated that the government understood that Laban Scearce intended to irrigate all Scearce lands by means of the 1864 water diversion 4 and that it interpreted the 1904 agreement, assumed by the United States, as encompassing the obligation to supply water to 250 acres, at a certain rate of flow, depending on the season. In 1926 the Scearce family and the government entered into a separate stipulation explicitly "confirm[ing]" the earlier assumed agreement and setting forth the agreement's "particular[ ] ... sense and meaning" in four alphabetically labelled paragraphs. 1926 Scearce Stipulation at 1. The stipulation did not specify any particular number of acre feet of water to be supplied, or distinguish between irrigated and irrigable acres of land. Both the Hall and Scearce stipulations stated more precisely the rate specifications of the 1904 agreement--"125 miners inches and 75 miners inches of water (under a four-inch pressure--being equivalent to 2 1/2 and 1 1/2 cubic feet per second )"--and adopted the "periods in each irrigation season described" by that agreement. Angle Decree (Hall & Scearce Stipulations) at 146, 149 (emphasis added). The acreage encompassed by the "Scearce lands" was not otherwise designated or restricted in any way. At the time, the Scearce family was continuing to expand the number of acres irrigated by water from Stony Creek. 5
In 1928 the United States presented the court-appointed special master with a proposed set of findings and conclusions, and a proposed decree. These were adopted by the special master who then provided for the filing of suggested amendments or objections. Scearce's attorney filed objections based on those portions of the proposed decree creating a "wholly immaterial" distinction between irrigated and irrigable lands. Appellant's Opening Brief at 29. He noted that the "proposed limitation of [Scearce water rights] to a particular 100 acres of land and to the application of only 470 acre feet to the irrigation of their land, is a clear evasion of the contract" to supply water based on a specified rate of flow over certain time periods. Id. After a Special Assistant to the United States Attorney General assured Scearce's attorney that he had misread the proposed decree, the objections were withdrawn. Id. In 1930 Judge Kerrigan, the district court judge presiding over the multi-party water rights adjudication, adopted the amended findings of fact and conclusions of law and entered the decree "perpetually ... enjoin[ing] [named parties and their successors] from diverting, taking or interfering in any way with the waters of Stony Creek ... [so as to] interfere with the diversion, use or enjoyment of said waters by the owners of prior or superior rights therein as defined and established by this decree." Angle Decree at 178.
The Angle Decree is structured compartmentally. Articles I through VI dismiss certain defendants, bar other defendants' claims of right, record waivers, disclaimers and failures to respond on the part of numerous defendants (listed in four separate schedules), and determine that another class of defendants (detailed in two schedules) failed to prove either riparian or appropriative rights to Stony Creek's waters. Article VII sets forth the appropriation rights of some 117 defendants, naming among them the Scearce family. It specifies maximum diversion rights at certain maximum flow rates for designated areas of land in an "Appropriation Schedule." The Scearces receive a maximum diversion right by appropriation according to this schedule of 470 acre feet for 100 acres or 4.7 acre feet of water per acre (a.f.a.) at a flow rate of 1.96 cubic feet per second (c.f.s.). Prominently noted beneath the Scearce entry is the reservation: "The United States diverts and delivers the water called for under this appropriation and priority and holds title thereto as described in Articles VIII and XI of this decree."...
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