Case Name: THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES v. LEON McL. BALDWIN et al.
Court: Supreme Court of California
Jurisdiction: California
Decision Date: 1879
Citations: 53 Cal. 469
Docket Number: No. 6040
Parties: THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES v. LEON McL. BALDWIN et al.
Judges: 
Reporter: California Reports
Volume: 53
Pages: 469–475

Head Matter:
[No. 6040.]
THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES v. LEON McL. BALDWIN et al.
Cobpus of Los Angeles Rivee.—The City of Los Angeles is not the owner of the corpus of the water in the Los Angeles River.
Judgment Conclusive of Ripabian Rights.—A judgment determining the rights of parties as riparian proprietors on the same stream of water is conclusive when the conditions remain unchanged.
Appeal from the District Court of the Seventeenth Judicial District, Los Angeles County.
Action to quiet title to the waters of the Los Angeles Diver. The defendants set up title, and pleaded in bar a former recovery. The facts fully appear in the opinion of Mr. Justice Decodes. The defendants had judgment and the plaintiff appealed.
J. F. Godfrey and A. W. Hutton, for Appellant.
Howard, Brunson & Howard and F. Ganahl, for Despondents.

Opinion:
By the Court, Wallace, C. J.:
1. The claim set up by the city in this action—that the city is the owner of the corpus of the water in the Los Angeles Diver—finds no support in the evidence.
2. Nor does the fact that the city is a lower riparian proprietor entitle her to judgment in her favor. The defendants arc upper riparian proprietors on the same stream. In the former action between these parties, it was adjudged that the diversion of the water by the defendants, to the extent and in the manner in which they then diverted it, was such as, being riparian proprietors, they might lawfully make. The conditions do not appear to be different now from what they then were. The diversion by the defendants is the same now as then, and while these conditions continue unchanged the judgment rendered in the former action operates as a bar between the parties here.
Judgment and order affirmed.