Opinion ID: 655382
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The district court & defendants' construction

Text: 21 The district court and the government confuse the sources which give rise to the parties' water rights in interpreting the decree. The government argues and the district court erroneously concludes that Article VIII(5)(1) defines the extent of Reimers' rights. This section sets forth the government's rights by appropriation. The note in the Appropriation Schedule recites that the government has title to Scearce's appropriation rights and that it diverts and delivers water in accordance with these rights and Articles VIII and XI. Angle Decree (Appropriation Schedule) at 121. The government even concedes that Item 5[ (1) ] actually refers to the government's acquired right, but nevertheless proceeds to ground Reimers' rights in this section of the decree. Respondent's Brief at 50. It contends that the government's obligation to furnish free water is measured by the appropriate rights it acquired from SCIC. 14 See also Angle, 760 F.Supp. at 1372. In linking the extent and nature of Reimers' rights to the Scearce entry in the Appropriation Schedule, the government and the court seize only upon the specification of acreage, but ignore the total allocation of water by appropriation (470 acre feet according to the 4.7 a.f.a. noted in the schedule). If Reimers' rights were rooted in numbers of acres of land, as defendants repeatedly assert, the appropriation rights appurtenant to that fraction of the land the defendants single out 15 would afford at least 470 acre feet of water, not 405. 16 We conclude that plaintiff's rights arise from contract and stipulation, based on flow and length of season, and thus are not necessarily limited to 470 acre feet--the stated measure of the government's appropriation rights only. 22 The government attempts to explain away the fundamental error--locating Reimers' rights in the clause establishing its own rights--by maintaining that the stipulations themselves should be read to provide 405 acre feet as the total amount of water to which Black Butte Ranch is entitled. Paragraph a of that stipulation states: 23 That the 125 miners inches and 75 miners inches of water (under four inch pressure--being equivalent respectively to 2 1/2 and 1 1/2 cubic feet per second) shall be delivered to the Scearce lands from the Government system during the periods in each irrigation season described in said agreement to the extent of the requirement of the lands actually being irrigated in each season; such requirement to be gauged by the maximum requirement of similar lands under the Orland project, and such deliveries to be by way of irrigation heads of greater amount than the aforesaid 125 miners inches and 75 miners inches, when required, in accord with the usual practice on the project; the total amount of water delivered during any irrigation season to said Scearce lands to be not greater in volume than the amount produced by a continuous flow of 125 miners inches up to July 15th and a continuous flow of 75 miners inches during the balance of the irrigation season; and in any one monthly period of each irrigation season not more than would be provided by a continuous flow for one month of 125 miners (if before July 15th) or of 75 miners inches (if after July 15th), or as the case may be, a proper combination of the two where the monthly period to be considered includes said date of July 15th. 24 Art. VIII, Scearce Stipulation, paragraph a. Ignoring the first clause of paragraph a (which plaintiff relies upon to establish the variables involved in calculating a total), the government focuses on the second clause which gauges the requirement of water for Black Butte Ranch to the maximum requirement of similar lands. This phrase, the government contends, refers to a later provision stating that the government's [a]verage diversion[ ] [right is] 4.05 acre-feet per acre during the irrigation season. Art. VIII(7). It then relies on the Scearce Lands Schedule specifically appended to Article VIII(5)(1) 17 to arrive at a total of 100 acres to which the water right attaches. An allocation of 4.05 a.f.a. to 100 acres results in a total of 405 acre feet of water--the same 405 acre feet total as already allegedly provided in Article VIII(5)(1). Significantly, both variables, the a.f.a. measure and the acreage, derive from sections of Article VIII that are strictly devoted to describing the government's rights, not from the stipulation. 18 Moreover, nothing in the decree itself supports transforming an average diversion [right], Art. VIII(7) et seq., into a maximum requirement. As an average (not maximum) quantity, representing a diversion right (not land requirement), the 4.05 figure simply has no bearing on the second clause of paragraph a. 25 Defendants and the district court essentially sidestep the stipulations by casting them as limitations on the exercise of the [Reimers'] water right. Respondent's Brief at 29 (emphasis in original); Angle, 760 F.Supp. at 1375. The United States reads an extra word into the second clause of paragraph 5. It states that this provision notes that 'the mutual relations' of the parties as to this right are further 'defined' in the stipulations. Id. at 29 (emphasis added). The court reads the stipulations somewhat differently from the United States, despite their common position that the stipulations serve to limit (not establish) plaintiffs rights. Its construction of the various clauses of paragraph a fails, in part because it does not accurately distinguish among the clauses 19 or analyze them discretely. 20 Nor do we find the district court's explanation of the benefits accorded Reimers by its construction of the decree persuasive. For example, the court notes that under the stipulations Reimers enjoys a more favorable cubic feet per second flow rate than she would have if the rate were set by the Appropriation Schedule. Angle, 760 F.Supp. at 1375. We find the court's comparison of these flow rates mystifying. First, it compares the rates of flow allotted to the Scearce and Hall families by stipulation with the rate of flow afforded the government by appropriation. Angle, 760 F.Supp. at 1375. The latter rate of flow has no relevance to Reimers' rights. She cannot be said to benefit from not having a rate of flow applied to her stipulation rights that attaches only to the government's appropriation rights. Second, under the construction of the decree adopted by the district court, the rate of flow is not the factor limiting the quantity of water to which she is entitled.