Opinion ID: 1170215
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 23

Heading: Existence of Pueblo Right: Historical Data on Spanish-Mexican Law

Text: Irrespective of res judicata, plaintiff urges us to follow prior decisions of this court upholding the existence of its pueblo water right under the doctrine of stare decisis. Defendants, on the other hand, ask us to overrule these prior decisions by adopting the trial court's conclusion that the Pueblo of Los Angeles did not have any prior or paramount right to any of the waters of the Los Angeles River under Spanish or Mexican law and that plaintiff therefore acquired no such right as the pueblo's successor. The trial court based its conclusion upon its extensive findings on (1) the history of the Spanish and Mexican settlement and development of the Pueblo of Los Angeles, the Mission San Fernando, the ranchos of the ULARA, and surrounding areas of Southern California and on (2) the laws, orders and regulations of Spain and Mexico relevant to the pueblo water right question. These findings were based in turn on the trial court's inferences and conclusions from lengthy expert testimony and voluminous historical documents and other exhibits. Even if the existence of the pueblo right were a question of first impression in our appellate courts, we would not apply to these findings the standard of appellate review by which findings must be upheld if supported by substantial evidence. (3) Spanish and Mexican laws governing property rights in California before the annexation remained in effect after the change of sovereignty unless duly repealed or altered, and we are required to take judicial notice of such laws as part of the law of this state. ( Ohm v. San Francisco (1891) 92 Cal. 437, 450 [28 P. 580].) Historical facts concerning the Spanish and Mexican settlement of California are also proper subjects of our judicial notice. ( City of San Diego v. Cuyamaca Water Co., supra, 209 Cal. at p. 124; Ocean Industries, Inc. v. Superior Court (1927) 200 Cal. 235, 241 [252 P. 722].) (4) Thus, in adjudicating California property rights dependent on a question of Spanish or Mexican law never before considered by us, we are called upon to make our own determination independently from the conclusions of the trial court even though we may be greatly aided by expert testimony and historical documents presented to and considered by the trial court and made part of the record on appeal. ( Estate of Chichernea (1967) 66 Cal.2d 83, 85-87 [57 Cal. Rptr. 135, 424 P.2d 687].) [16] A different approach must be taken, however, to an issue such as the existence of plaintiff's claimed pueblo water right under Spanish and Mexican law which has already been decided by this court in several prior cases. Even assuming that the exhibits and expert testimony in the present record would have persuaded us to decide against the pueblo right as an original question, we should not now so rule if to do so would unjustly impair legitimate interests built up over the years in reliance on our former decisions. (See United States v. Maine (1975) 420 U.S. 515 [43 L.Ed.2d 363, 95 S.Ct. 1155]; Hart v. Burnett (1860) 15 Cal. 530, 597-612.) Accordingly, we should not undertake the formidable task of reviewing in detail the vast mass of material in the record on the issue of pueblo water rights under Spanish-Mexican law [17] unless we are first assured of a reasonable possibility of finding grounds for denying the pueblo right which would outweigh the countervailing policies of stare decisis. To consider this possibility, we now summarize the major points covered by this material. The case for the existence of the pueblo right is essentially based on inferences from historical circumstances rather than on any express provision of Spanish or Mexican law. These circumstances relate to the founding of the pueblo and to subsequent events involving conflicts or potential conflicts between the pueblo's claims and the claims of others to the water of the Los Angeles River. The pueblo was established by order of the royal Spanish government as a permanent settlement to be inhabited principally by farmers who would grow crops on irrigated tracts of farm land as well as raise livestock and would furnish an essential source of agricultural supplies for the presidios. The pueblo was deliberately located to take maximum advantage of the Los Angeles River as a source of water for irrigation and the orders for the pueblo's founding included detailed provisions for an irrigation dam and canals. These circumstances strongly suggest a governmental policy of assuring the pueblo a supply of water sufficient for its maintenance and growth, at least in the absence of any other town or settlement of comparable importance competing for the same water supply. Events subsequent to the pueblo's founding in 1781 indicated continued recognition and protection of the pueblo's priority to the river water. Rancho San Rafael, directly north of the pueblo, was granted in 1784 and 1798 but only after the grantee had given express assurances that the pueblo would not be injured. In 1797 the Mission San Fernando was founded, not along the Los Angeles River, but in the northern San Fernando Valley where it could use the water available from the artesian springs of the Sylmar subarea. The mission carried on agricultural operations throughout most of the San Fernando Valley in the course of which it used water from the Los Angeles River for irrigation. Yet the recorded incidents of concern over the possible infringement of these operations upon the pueblo's water supply show consistent recognition of the pueblo's priority. In 1810, when the pueblo complained to higher authority about possible injury from the mission's using the river for irrigation, the mission agreed to desist whenever injury to the pueblo was shown. In 1817 the governor granted permission to the mission to irrigate land along the river only after first summoning pueblo officials and ascertaining from them that the proposal would not injure the pueblo. In 1836, after the mission lands were secularized, pueblo officials examined and investigated a dam on the river in the same area and obtained assurances that the administrator of the dam would break it if the pueblo ran short of water. Although most of the secularized mission land was granted to private parties by the Mexican government between 1840 and 1846, the trial court in Feliz v. City of Los Angeles (1881) 58 Cal. 73, 76, found that throughout the period of Mexican rule all of the owners of land along the river from its source to the pueblo recognized and acknowledged the pueblo's prior right. The historical evidence relied upon by defendants as supporting the trial court's findings against the pueblo right falls well short of demonstrating that our prior holdings upholding the right were palpably erroneous or unreasonable. Principal reliance is placed upon Laws 5 and 7 of Title 17, Book IV, of the Laws of the Indies. [18] Law 5 states in pertinent part: We command that the use of all pastures, woods and waters of the provinces of the Indies be common to all the citizens of them, that are now, and afterwards may be so that they can use them freely. Law 7 states in pertinent part: The woods, pastures and waters of the settlements ... must be common to Spaniards and Indians. Although defendants claim that these provisions for common use are inconsistent with a prior pueblo right, they necessarily concede that prior rights to water did exist. Irrigation rights could be granted, and defendants' expert, Lic. Onate, testified that a grant of irrigable land adjoining a river conveyed a right to irrigate. Thus, these provisions of the Laws of the Indies were not necessarily inconsistent with an implied grant to the Pueblo of Los Angeles of a prior right to use water from the river to the extent necessary to carry out the governmental orders and policies for which the pueblo was founded. Similarly, the provisions of the Laws of the Indies were not necessarily inconsistent with the establishment of a pueblo water right based on usage, as exemplified by the repeated instances of acknowledgment of the right by the mission fathers, higher governmental officials and upstream landowners. Nor is the existence of the pueblo right necessarily precluded by the qualifications which defendants cite as being placed upon grants to use water for irrigation. The subjection of these grants to common use of the water for domestic purposes permitted the filling of portable containers directly from the river with water for domestic use but did not necessarily cover the delivery of water through pipes or other conduits. Another qualification to which irrigation grants were subject was the governmental authority to apportion water in the event of drought or shortage, but such authority was a form of police power exercisable to alleviate physical deprivation caused by drought or other emergency and did not necessarily impair the pueblo's priority for its needs under normal conditions. A further qualification relied upon by defendants is the right of landowners to use water from springs or wells on their land. This private right was concededly subject to the pueblo's right to take water needed for its inhabitants but defendants assert that the owner was then entitled to compensation from the pueblo. No compensation was required, however, if the pueblo had acquired the use of the water by means of title or prescription. If the ground water supplying the well or spring was part of an underground flow to a river subject to the pueblo right, it can reasonably be concluded that the pueblo could use the water to satisfy its needs free from any obligation of compensation. Defendants dispute the historical predominance of pueblos over other forms of Spanish settlements such as presidios, missions and ranchos, but it can reasonably be concluded from the evidence that the pueblo was selected as the primary instrument for the permanent settlement and development of Spanish America. A different question is raised by the contention of the three defendant cities that they are entitled to share in the water which plaintiff claims under the pueblo right because multiple pueblos located along the same river were required by Spanish law to share the river water with each other. Whether, to what extent, and under what circumstances Spanish law (1) gave multiple pueblos equal rights in the river or (2) gave priority to the earliest established pueblo is not clear. Since no pueblo other than Los Angeles was located along the Los Angeles River during the Spanish-Mexican period, any Spanish or Mexican law or usage on the subject could have no practical effect on the rights of the Pueblo of Los Angeles. The defendant cities were never pueblos and did not come into existence until well over half a century after California became part of the United States. Their claim to share in the native waters of the Los Angeles River cannot be judged by speculation on what would have been the rights of additional pueblos had they been established along the river, but only by the circumstances which actually preceded and accompanied the defendants' establishment as California cities, including the development of water law in this state and conduct in reliance thereon. We conclude from this historical data considered by the trial court that at the very least there is a colorable basis for the existence of the pueblo water right claimed by plaintiff. Regardless of how we might determine the issue if the slate were clean of precedent, we are not convinced by this historical showing that our prior decisions upholding the pueblo right were palpably erroneous or unreasonable and should be ignored or overruled.