Title: Green v. Chaffee Ditch Company
Citation: 371 P.2d 775
Docket Number: 19347
State: Colorado
Issuer: Colorado Supreme Court
Date: April 30, 1962

371 P.2d 775 (1962) Conrad C. GREEN and Lillian Green, Melville Ray Young, Edith A. Young, Laporte School District 64, Thomas Melville Young, The City of Fort Collins, Colorado, J. W. Breazeale, Milton Coy Hoffman and Lydia Hoffman Morrison, Plaintiffs in Error, v. The CHAFFEE DITCH COMPANY et al., Defendants in Error. No. 19347. Supreme Court of Colorado. En Banc. April 30, 1962. Rehearing Denied June 11, 1962. *776 March &amp; Wells, Fort Collins, Holme, Roberts, More &amp; Owen, John M. Dickson, Denver, for plaintiffs in error. Albert P. Fischer, Ward H. Fischer, James D. Beatty, Fort Collins, for protestants Chaffee Ditch Co., Jackson Ditch Co., Water Supply &amp; Storage Co. and Pleasant Valley &amp; Lake Canal Co. Robert G. Smith, William E. Bohlender, Greeley, for protestants Larimer &amp; Weld Irr. Co., Larimer &amp; Weld Reservoir Co., Windsor Reservoir &amp; Canal Co. and Cache la Poudre Irrigating Ditch Co. Ronald H. Strahle, Fort Collins, for protestants Arthur Irr. Co., Warren Lake Reservoir Co., New Mercer Ditch Co. and Larimer County Canal No. 2 Irrigating Co. William H. Allen, William C. Stover, Eugene E. Mitchell, Fort Collins, for protestants North Poudre Irr. Co., Box Elder Ditch Co., Josh Ames Ditch, Taylor &amp; Gill Ditch Co., Don Nesbitt and Adele Nesbitt. William R. Kelly, Greeley, for protestants New Cache la Poudre Irr. Co. and Cache la Poudre Reservoir Co. Thomas A. Richardson, Greeley, for protestant City of Greeley. MOORE, Justice. The action in the trial court was commenced by plaintiffs in error, hereinafter referred to as plaintiffs or by name, who sought a decree changing the point of diversion of water from the Cache la Poudre river in Larimer county. Defendants in error, to whom we will refer as protestants or by name, were appropriators of water from the same stream and protested the requested change of point of diversion. The city of Fort Collins entered into contracts for the purchase of 3.2 cubic feet of water per second from persons entitled to the use thereof and supplied to them by the Jackson Ditch Company. All of the plaintiffs except the city of Fort Collins, Lydia Hoffman Morrison and Milton Coy Hoffman, are vendors to the city of Fort Collins of some portion of the 3.2 c. f. s. referred to, carried by the Jackson Ditch, which water is a portion of priority No. 3 from the Poudre River with a date of June 10, 1861. The controversy as related to the Jackson Ditch water (priority No. 3) is wholly unrelated to other phases of the case. The issues concerning the 3.2 c. f. s. were separately tried in the trial court and are *777 treated in Part I of the briefs filed in this case. The second phase of the case involves the right of the city of Fort Collins to change the point of diversion of 8 c. f. s. of water from the headgate of the Coy Ditch to a point upstream for use in the domestic water system of the city. In this phase of the controversy plaintiffs Lydia Hoffman Morrison and Milton Coy Hoffman had contracted to sell 8 c. f. s. of water to the city of Fort Collins to come from priority No. 13 on the Poudre river. We consider first the controversy with reference to the Jackson Ditch water (priority No. 3). One Antoine Janis was the original appropriator of this and other waters. It is undisputed that in about the year 1870 Janis entered into a contract with the Dry Ditch Company (now the Jackson Ditch Company). All the plaintiffs interested in securing a change in the point of diversion of the 3.2 c. f. s. are successors in interest to the rights of Janis as those rights were affected by the said contract between Janis and Dry Creek Ditch Company. The record before us does not disclose the details of this agreement. The findings of the trial court contain the following pertinent language: The pleadings and decrees in each of the cases previously decided are part of the record before us. In those actions the several plaintiffs (all of whom were represented by the same attorneys) brought actions to compel the Jackson Ditch Company to deliver certain amounts of water for the irrigation of specifically described lands. The complaints in those cases contained, inter alia, the following allegations. The complaints further contained the allegation that the Jackson Ditch Company "claims some title or right in and to the said water rights of plaintiff adverse to the right, title, interest and estate of the plaintiff and plaintiff avers that such claim is unwarranted and without foundation." The prayer of plaintiffs in said actions sought relief against the Jackson Ditch Company, inter alia, as follows: In each of said actions the Jackson Ditch Company filed answer in which it denied that plaintiff was the owner of the water right in question and alleged that it was "the owner of all of said priorities and of the ditch theretofore owned and operated by the predecessor in title and interest of this defendant." (The Dry Creek Ditch Co.) In each of said actions the court held that the Jackson Ditch Company was the owner of the ditch to which there had been awarded "priorities or right to the use of water from the Cache la Poudre River" which included "Priority No. 3 as of date June 10, 1861 * * *." The said decrees further recited that after the water adjudication of April 1, 1882, "* * * the defendant herein thereafter became the owner of said ditch and became the owner of the said priorities and appropriations thereof, subject, however, to certain rights therein under a contract between one Antoine Janis and the said The Dry Creek Ditch Company entered into in about the year 1870 whereby The Dry Creek Ditch Company did at said time take and use the river headgate and ditch therefrom constructed by said Antoine Janis about the year 1861 for the purpose of taking and using waters for the irrigation of lands lying thereunder, and in consideration thereof the contract provided that lands of the said Antoine Janis should receive from the said Dry Creek or Jackson Ditch sufficient waters at all times *779 when required for the proper irrigation thereof. * * *" The decrees in the said actions were entered January 2, 1931. Plaintiffs in the present action are in privity with the plaintiffs in the actions in which the said decrees were entered, and are bound by the construction placed on the contract between Antoine Janis and the Dry Creek Ditch Company by those decrees. Under the 1931 decrees it was determined that the Jackson Ditch Company was the owner of "the said priorities and appropriations thereof." It was adjudged that the rights of those persons then standing "in the shoes" of the present plaintiffs were only contractual rights to make use of water on specific lands. Such a contractual right is far different from the "water right" acquired by Janis by his original appropriation, diversion and application to a beneficial use. Originally the right of Janis had the status of real property and could be conveyed without reference to the land on which it had been used. It was determined by the court decrees entered in 1931 that after the execution of the said contract Janis was no longer the owner of a water right. He then became only a consumer whose rights were determined by contract, and his successors in interest acquired only his rights thereunder. The rights of plaintiffs are not comparable to those enjoyed by shareholders of the Jackson Ditch Company. Shareholders of the company are the equitable owners of the water rights adjudicated to the ditch. Plaintiffs in this action are not shareholders of the Jackson Ditch Company. The pleadings in the cases which resulted in the entry of the 1931 decrees raised issues which required an adjudication on the precise question, the answer to which controls the result in the present case. The issue was there determined and the decrees are res judicata of the question of the right of plaintiffs to secure a change in the point of diversion. We think it sufficient to direct attention to the statements of the applicable general rules quoted with approval by this court in Craddock v. Palmer, Administratrix, 91 Colo. 79, 11 P.2d 807, as follows: It is immaterial that the present action is to change the point of diversion and that the prior action was to enforce a contract. Likewise, it is immaterial that the plaintiffs in the earlier actions are not plaintiffs in the instant case because the latter are in privity of estate with the former. From 30A Am.Jur. (Judgments) Sec. 371, pages 411, 415, we quote: "It is a fundamental principle of jurisprudence that material facts or questions which were in issue in a former action, and were there admitted or judicially determined, are conclusively settled by a judgment rendered therein, and that such facts or questions become res judicata and may not again be litigated in a subsequent action between the same parties or their privies, regardless of the form the issue may take in the subsequent action, whether the subsequent action involves the same or a different form of proceeding, or whether the second action is upon the same or a different cause of action, subject matter, claim, or demand, as the earlier action. In such cases it is also immaterial that the two actions are based on different grounds, or tried on different theories, or instituted *780 for different purposes, and seek different relief. The opinion of this court in Newby et al. v. Bock, 120 Colo. 454, 210 P.2d 985, is in accord with the foregoing statement. It follows that the judgment as it relates to the first phase of the action must be affirmed. We now consider that phase of the controversy relating to the application to change the point of diversion of 8 c. f. s. of water presently withdrawn from the Cache la Poudre river at the headgate of the Coy Ditch. Lydia Hoffman Morrison and her brother Milton Coy Hoffman are the owners of seventy-two acres of land along the bank of the river. In the water adjudication of April 11, 1882, under priority No. 13, the Coy Ditch was awarded 31.63 c. f. s. from the stream. One-half of this water right, or approximately 16 c. f. s., is owned by Morrison and Hoffman. They entered into a contract to sell to the city of Fort Collins 8 c. f. s. of this water, and the city requests permission to change the point of diversion thirteen miles upstream. Numerous protests were filed to the requested change. These protests contain the assertion that Morrison and Hoffman did not own 16 c. f. s., and that if any such water rights had ever existed they had been abandoned. The trial court entered findings which, in pertinent part, contain the following: The court decreed inter alia that: There is competent evidence in the record before us to sustain all the findings of fact entered by the trial court. The evidence which was admitted over objection was properly received. Upon motion made by plaintiffs the decree of the court was amended to include a provision under which, in the event of an affirmance of the judgment, plaintiffs were given ninety days following final disposition of the case in this court within which to file an election to proceed with the change in the point of diversion on the conditions imposed by the judgment of the trial court. The grounds on which plaintiffs seek reversal are variously stated by their attorneys. In the briefs of counsel for Morrison and Hoffman it is argued that: There is an abundance of evidence establishing the fact that at no time has an amount of water in excess of 8 c. f. s. been applied to beneficial use on the seventy-two acres of land involved. We doubt that it would be possible to apply even as much as 8 c. f. s. to beneficial use in agricultural pursuits on seventy-two acres of land. There is no merit to the first contention. With reference to the second contention that the court lacked jurisdiction to decree abandonment of waters other than those sought to be transferred, we direct attention to the fact that from the very beginning no more than 8 c. f. s. was actually acquired by anyone for use on the Morrison-Hoffman land. The decree under which a priority of 31 c. f. s. was "adjudicated" to the Coy Ditch could only afford protection to the extent that said water, or fraction thereof, was actually applied to beneficial use. That adjudication decree in 1882 specifically provided: The trial court authorized transfer of the point of diversion of 8 c. f. s. Under specific findings made on competent evidence this volume of water was all that had ever ripened into a water right owned by Morrison and Hoffman. Actually they had contracted to sell to the city all the water which they could lawfully have used at any time. Under the specific findings of the trial court that no more than 8 c. f. s. was ever applied to beneficial use, that volume of water was the full measure of the water right acquired. An asserted water right which never came into being cannot be "abandoned", and the reference to "abandonment" in the trial court's judgment is an erroneous concept the result of which is harmless in this case. No good purpose would be served in lengthening this opinion by detailed analyses of other contentions advanced by plaintiffs. Applicable and controlling rules concerning these contentions are to be found in the opinion of this court in Farmers Highline Canal and Reservoir Company et al. v. City of Golden et al., 129 Colo. 575, 272 P.2d 629. From that opinion we re-state basic concepts which require an affirmance of the judgment in the instant action. The case cited was one involving *783 an application for change in the point of diversion of water. It was there held: (1) Where the proceeding is conducted pursuant to statutory direction, We think the following language contained in the opinion in the case cited is pertinent to the issues in the instant case: "* * * Where the entire amount fixed by the decree was reasonably required in the proper irrigation of the lands to which first applied, then the whole priority properly may be changed for similar usage; but where such irrigation did not require the entire volume of the decree, then only that portion may be changed which previously had been necessary for proper irrigation. It is not a question of whether the amount of water decreed was adequate, but whether it was excessive. The extent of needed use in original location is the criterion in considering change of point of diversion. This, of course, is premised upon the assumption that whatever of the decreed *784 water was not properly used remained in the stream. We conclude that the trial court determined the issues in the instant case in a manner consistent with the foregoing principles, and find no error requiring a reversal of the judgment. There was no abuse of discretion in the assessment of costs. The judgment accordingly is affirmed.