Opinion ID: 1170215
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Mutual Prescription

Text: Defendants claim they have acquired rights by mutual prescription under the principles of City of Pasadena v. City of Alhambra (1949) 33 Cal.2d 908 [207 P.2d 17]. They assert that these prescriptive rights supersede all other water rights including those claimed by plaintiff based on a pueblo right and on a right to recapture returns from imported water. Defendants also contend that the present case falls squarely within the precedent of the Pasadena case under the following theory: (1) More than five years before the complaint was filed, the total annual extractions of ground water exceeded the safe yield, which is, in essence, the maximum amount of water that could be extracted annually, year after year, without eventually depleting the underground basin. (2) When annual extractions exceeded safe yield, there was an overdraft signalling the beginning of a prescriptive period. (3) Each party has a prescriptive right to its highest continuous production of water for beneficial use in any five (5) year period after the beginning of overdraft and before commencement of the present action as to which there has been no cessation of use by it during any subsequent continuous five (5) year period. (33 Cal.2d at p. 922.) (4) The trial court properly awarded each party a pumping right calculated by adjusting the prescriptive rights proportionately so that the total extractions from the basin were limited to its safe yield. Defendants further contend that in applying the Pasadena formula it was proper to calculate separate safe yields for the San Fernando, Sylmar, and Verdugo subareas, and to base the prescriptive rights to water in each subarea on each party's extractions in that subarea.