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

Heading: The plaintiff's construction

Text: 26 Reimers' construction of the decree takes paragraph a of the appended stipulations as its departure point. Reimers contends that clauses (1) and (3) provide a method for calculating her water rights rather than a fixed number of acre feet that quantify water rights as in the Appropriation and Riparian Schedules. 21 Under her interpretation of the stipulations, Reimers is entitled to [the total] amount [of water] produced by a continuous flow of 125 miners inches [2.5 c.f.s.] up to July 15th and a continuous flow of 75 miners inches [1.5 c.f.s.] during the balance of the irrigation season. Art. VIII, Scearce Stipulation, paragraph a(3). The district court rejects this construction based in part on notice considerations. Angle, 760 F.Supp. at 1374. We think the concern is overweighted. The decree clearly flags the fact that the Scearce family has special privileges which are defined in an appended Scearce stipulation and based on a pre-dated agreement, not because of appropriation. It is true that the other Angle defendants may not have been able readily to calculate a specific quantity of water to which Scearce was entitled or find the acreage 22 afforded a certain total acre feet of water free of charge in a By Contractual Right Schedule. But they were put on notice by Articles VII and VIII that such rights existed and could be calculated. 23 It was not unusual at the time the decree was entered to specify water rights in terms of flow rates. See e.g., Haight v. Costanich, 184 Cal. 426, 194 P. 26, 28 (1920) (en banc) (trial court awarded one party 48 miners inches, the other, 52 inches). 27 The district court also found problematic certain consequences from applying the flow rate and irrigation season formula. Under the formula, despite the fact that they held some eighty acres less land, the Hall successors in interest might be entitled to receive a greater a.f.a. than the Scearce successors, thus defy[ing] common sense. Angle, 760 F.Supp. at 1374. Although the allocation may provide more water per acre to the Hall successors, we do not agree that it defies common sense. The 1904 agreement accorded the Halls almost the same rights as the Scearce family. Both the Hall and Scearce agreements featured the same miners inches formula, as did the Hall and Scearce stipulations. The fact that one beneficiary may receive more water per acre foot than another does not dictate[ ] a patently irrational result, id., see United States v. Gila Valley Irrig. Dist., 961 F.2d 1432, 1440 (9th Cir.1992) ([w]e decline to depart from the unambiguous language of the Decree just because adherence to that language may favor one party over another to some degree). 28 Finally, the district court refused to adopt Reimers' construction because 29 [i]f, as plaintiff[ ] suggest[s], the lands referred to in the stipulations are the 416 acres as described in the Project Land Schedule, the effect of paragraph c would contradict the priorities as set out in the Appropriation Schedule contained in Article VII, which accords the highest priority to only 190 acres. 30 Angle, 760 F.Supp. at 1373. In the first place, paragraph c is not the source of Reimers' water rights (they are set forth in paragraph a). It only declares what priority she has to water from the available natural flow in the stream, in years of drought or great scarcity of water. Art. VIII, Scearce Stipulation, paragraph c. This provision reaches back to the priority Reimers would have enjoyed if she held her rights by appropriation allocating preeminent priority to 470 acre feet. See Art. VII (Appropriation Schedule). It does not mean that Reimers is entitled only to 470 a.f. in non-drought years. That would be to substitute the transferred appropriation rights for the contract rights received in exchange for them and the waterworks--the fundamental error identified on appeal. Second, paragraph c creates no conflict by allowing Reimers priority rights in times of drought that are the same as the priority rights attached to her predecessor's appropriation rights. The decree as we read it is faithful to the 1904 agreement which protects the SCIC in the event it cannot in times of drought furnish all the water Scearce is entitled to under the contract. SCIC would not forfeit its rights, nor would there be a reversion if 31 from extreme draught [sic] or other unavoidable cause there should not be sufficient water in the creek at the said proposed new place of diversion to supply the same to [Scearce]. In case there should be such a shortage of water or a failure of supply in the creek, then [SCIC] should furnish to [Scearce] as much of said designated amounts of water as can be gotten from said creek by the usual methods employed and to be employed in taking water therefrom into the said ditch or canal. 32 1904 Agreement at 3-4. 33 Plaintiff's construction of the decree does not suffer from the fatal contradictions urged by the government and the district court. The stipulation provides a basis for determining the full extent of Reimers' water rights, an amount determined by reference to flow rates and length of irrigation season, nevertheless, limited in certain respects. While the Scearce stipulation does confirm[ ] the 1904 agreement, it notes that certain particulars are defined exclusively herein. Paragraph a (2) introduces at least one modification unelaborated by Reimers: water requirements will be gauged by reference to similar lands. 24 Also paragraph a(1) specifies that the irrigation season (one of the formula's crucial variables) is described in said [1904] agreement. 25 We leave it to the district court on remand to ascertain the effect of these limitations on Reimers' rights. 26