Opinion ID: 106566
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: history of the litigation.

Text: The suit was filed in 1947 and has been both costly and protracted. [3] It involves some 325,000 acres of land including a portion of the City of Fresno. See map in 142 F. Supp., at 40. Originally filed in the Superior Court of California, it sought to enjoin local officials of the United States Reclamation Bureau from storing or diverting water to the San Joaquin at Friant Dam or, in the alternative, to obtain a decree of a physical solution of water rights. The action was removed to the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. The named plaintiffs claimed to represent a class of owners of riparian as well as other types of water rights. In addition to the local officials of the Reclamation Bureau two of the Irrigation Districts receiving diverted water from Millerton Lake were originally made defendants and later the other Irrigation and Utility District defendants were joined. The complaint challenged the constitutional authority of the United States to operate the Project. A three-judge court was impaneled pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2282, and it decided this issue presented no substantial constitutional question. Rank v. Krug, 90 F. Supp. 773 (D. C. S. D. Cal. 1950). This left undecided the question of whether the Secretary of the Interior and Bureau of Reclamation officials had statutory authority to acquire the water rights involved. The issue remained dormant until the Delta-Mendota Canal was completed in 1951, 142 F. Supp., at 45, and the Government began to reduce the flow of water through Friant Dam. By consent, temporary restraining orders were entered controlling the releases covering the years 1951, 1952, and part of 1953. In June of the latter year the United States withdrew its consent with the approval of the Court of Appeals, United States v. United States District Court, 206 F. 2d 303. The District Court then ordered the United States joined as a party on the basis of the McCarran amendment, Act of July 10, 1952, 66 Stat. 560, 43 U. S. C. § 666, infra, n. 5. Friant Dam has, however, been operated by the United States without judicial interference since June 30, 1953. The District Court announced its opinion in the case on February 7, 1956, 142 F. Supp. 1, and the judgment was entered the next year. It declared the water rights of all of the claimants, the members of the class they claimed to represent and the intervenors, Tranquility Irrigation District and the City of Fresno, as against the United States, the Reclamation Bureau officers and the Districts. It did not grant relief as between individual claimants of water rights or adjudicate the priority of these rights among them. 142 F. Supp., at 36. The judgment declared that the claimants have been, now are, and will be entitled to the full natural flow of the San Joaquin River past Friant at all times . . . unless and until the physical solution hereinelsewhere described is erected and constructed [by the defendants] within a reasonable time, and thereafter operated as hereinelsewhere set forth. Transcript of Record, Vol. III, p. 993. The physical solution was a series of 10 small dams to be built at the expense of the United States along the stretch of river involved for the purpose of keeping the water at a level equivalent to the natural flow, 142 F. Supp., at 166, or to simulate it at a flow of 2,000 feet per second. 142 F. Supp., at 169. In summary, the court held that the United States was a proper party under the McCarran amendment; that the claimants had vested rights to the full natural flow of the river superior to any rights of the United States or other defendants; that the operation of Friant Dam does not permit sufficient water to pass down the river to satisfy these rights; that Congress has not authorized the taking of these rights by physical seizure but only by eminent domain exercised through judicial proceedings; that as a consequence the impounding at Friant Dam constitutes an unauthorized and unlawful invasion of rights for which damages are not adequate recompense; that this requires all of the defendants, including the United States, to be enjoined from storing or diverting or otherwise impeding the full natural flow of the San Joaquin at Friant Dam unless within a reasonable time and at its own expense the United States, or the Districts, build the dams aforesaid and put them into operation; that the United States is subject to the California county of origin and watershed of origin statutes, Calif. Water Code § 10505, and §§ 11460-11463, and must first satisfy at the same charge as made for agricultural water service the full needs of the City of Fresno and Tranquility Irrigation District before diverting San Joaquin water to other areas; and finally that the United States is also subject to Calif. Water Code §§ 106 and 106.5 as to domestic-use water priority and the power of municipalities to acquire and hold water rights. [4] The Court of Appeals reversed as to the joinder of the United States, holding that it could not be made a party without its consent. It likewise found that the United States was authorized to acquire, either by physical seizure or otherwise, such of the rights of the claimants as it needed to operate the Project and that this power could not be restricted by state law. However, it found that no such authorized seizure had occurred because the Government had not sufficiently identified what rights it was seizing, and because of this equivocation of the federal officials, there was a trespass rather than a taking. It concluded, therefore, that the petitioner Reclamation Bureau officials had acted beyond their statutory authority and affirmed the injunctive features of the judgment. On rehearing, the injunction was modified to make it inapplicable to the petitioner Districts in No. 115 but the court refused to dismiss as to them.