Court Opinion

ID: 9651038
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:03:25.351511+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:29.241513
License: Public Domain

WILBUR, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
I concur in that portion of the main opinion which construes the Desert Land Act of March 3, 1877 (19 Stat. 377 [43 USCA § 321]).
The main opinion relies largely on the Hood River Case, 114 Or. 112, 227 P. 1065, adjudicating the rights of claimants to water in the Hood river of Oregon. This ease dealt with the power rights of the Pacific Power & Light Company. The court held that the Pacific Power & Light Company, although the owner of riparian land on both banks of the Hood river, was not entitled to the undiminished flow of the river through their land under the law of Oregon, and that the common-law doctrine of riparian rights was to that extent inapplicable to the conditions in Oregon. The court also held that the Pacific Power & Light Company had no right to power by reason of its riparian ownership because it had not used the power prior to the enactment of the Water Code of 1909. As the decision in the main opinion is based very largely upon the decision of the Supreme Court of Oregon in the Hood River Case, I proceed to state the reasons why I agree with the first conclusion of the Supreme Court of Oregon, and of the majority of the court in the case at bar, in holding that the right of the riparian owner to an undiminished flow of water through his land in order that he *570might use the same for the development of power, is subordinate to the right of those who have appropriated water for irrigation purposes above the land in question. I will follow this discussion by a statement of the reasons why I disagree with the conclusion of the majority in the ease at bar holding that the riparian right of the appellant is subordinate to the claim of appropriation' of water for power purposes made subsequent to the grant of appellant’s riparian right to use the water for power purposes.
As pointed out by the Supreme Court of Oregon in the Hood River Case, to hold that the common-law doctrine of the right of riparian owners to the full and undiminished flow of the stream is applicable would prevent the use of water for irrigation because any use of water for irrigation necessarily diminishes the flow of the stream below the point of diversion. As pointed out by Judge Bean, the author of the majority opinion in the Hood River Case: “The very essence of the common law is flexibility and adaptability. It does not consist of fixed rules, but is the best product of human reason applied to the premises of the ordinary and extraordinary conditions of life, as from timé to time they are brought before the courts. Although the common law is homogeneous, yet it finds widely different expression in different jurisdictions. If the common law should become so crystallized that its expression must take on the same form wherever the common-law system prevails, irrespective of physical, social, or other conditions peculiar to the locality, it would cease to be the common law of history, and would be an inelastie and arbitrary code. It is one of the established principles of the common law, which has been carried along with its growth, that precedents must yield to the reason of different or modified conditions.”
A good illustration of this rule of adaptation is in the Town of Antioch v. Williams Irr. Dist., 188 Cal. 451, 462, 465, 205 P. 688, 693, where Chief Justice Shaw, speaking for the court, said: “In this state the climate, the original ownership of the land, the policy of the governments of the United States and the state, the original owners, regarding the use and occupancy thereof for mining purposes by persons not in privity with them, and the necessity of water for placer mining and irrigation, are all so different from the conditions existing in Great Britain, where the feommon law had its origin, that the court from the first has had some difficulty in applying it here without producing the injustice or wrong which it is the chief purpose of the common law to prevent or redress. It has frequently been necessary to invoke the maxim of jurisprudence that ‘when the reason of a rule ceases, so should the rule itself,’ and this maxim has- been incorporated into the Civil Code. Section 3510. It is as much a part of the common law as are the rules concerning the right of appropriation of water.” Page 465 of 188 Cal., 205 P. 688, 694: “Similar unprecedented conditions were presented in Katz v. Walkinshaw, 141 Cal. 116, 70 P. 663, 74 P. 766, 64 L. R. A. 236, 99 Am. St. Rep. 35, and the numerous eases following it. It was there said that: ‘Whenever it is found that, owing to the physical features and character of this state, and the peculiarities of its climate, soil, and productions, the application of a given common-law rule by our courts tends constantly to cause injustice and wrong, rather than the administration of justice and right, then the fundamental principles of right and justice on which the law is founded, and which its administration is intended to promote, require that a different rule should be adopted.’ ”
If a court can apply the rule of reason in defining the rights of a riparian owner, and declare that changed conditions demand a change in the rights of a riparian owner, it would seem to follow that the legislative branch of the government could also declare and define the rights of a riparian owner so long, and, I think, only so long as the legislation is a reasonable adaptation of the common-law rule to the conditions obtaining in the state, assuming of course that the state has followed the common law in defining the rights of riparian owners. In Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U. S. 1, 14 S. Ct. 548, 567 (38 L. Ed. 331, 350, see, also, Rose’s U. S. Notes), Justice Gray, speaking for the court, said: “The settlers of Oregon, like the colonists of the Atlantic states, coming from a country in which the common law prevailed, to one that had no organized government, took with them, as their birthright, the principles of the common law, so far as suited to their condition in their new home. The jurisprudence of Oregon, therefore, is based on the common law.” See, also, Lytle v. Hulen, 128 Or. 483, 510, 275 P. 45.
The common-law doctrine of riparian rights was fully and completely adopted by legislation (Territorial Act June 7, 1844, Laws Or. 1843-49, p. 100), and by its Constitution, article 18, § 7, and by judicial decisions of the state of Oregon, as will appear by the following quotation from the decisions *571of the Supreme Court of Oregon and from our own decisions. In United States F. & G. Co. v. Bramwell, 108 Or. 261, 217 P. 332, 333, 32 A. L. R. 820, the Supreme Court of Oregon said: “The common law of England, modified and amended by English statutes, as it existed at the time of the American Revolution, as far’ as it was general and not local in its nature and applicable to the conditions of the people and not incompatible with the nature of our political institutions or in conflict with the Constitution and laws of the United States or of this state, except as modified, changed, or repealed by our own statutes, has been adopted and is in force in this state. Peery v. Fletcher, 93 Or. 43, 182 P. 143.”
In Eastern Oregon Land Co. v. Willow River Land & Irrig. Co., 201 F. 203, 213, this court said:
“It will not be necessary to enter into a discussion of the statutes and various decisions of the Supreme Court of Oregon defining riparian rights in that state. We will accept the opinion of the learned District Judge in this ease upon that question that:
“ ‘The riparian proprietor is entitled to the ordinary and usual flow of a stream as long as it is of any beneficial use to him, and this may, under some circumstances, include flood or overflow waters reasonably to> be anticipat- . ed during ordinary seasons.’ ”
The decision referred to is that of Judge Bean of the District Court of the United States for the District of Oregon, Eastern Oregon Land Co. v. Willow River Land & Irrig. Co., 187 F. 466, 468, and is as follows: “Tho general doctrine of riparian lights is too firmly established in this state to be shaken now by judicial decision. It is useless to cite authorities. The riparian proprietor is entitled to the ordinary and usual flow of a stream as long as it is of any beneficial use to him. * * *”
In Harris v. Southeast Portland Lumber Co., 123 Or. 549-550, 557, 262 P. 243, 245, it is said:
“In Weiss v. Oregon Iron & Steel Co., 13 Or. 496, 31 P. 255, this court, speaking through Mr. Justice Lord, said:
“ ‘Riparian proprietors are entitled, in the absence of grant, license, or prescription limiting their rights, to have the stream which washes their lands flow as it is wont by nature, without material diminution or alteration. ' ‘ * The general principle is that every owner of land through which a natural stream of water flows has a usufruct in the stream as it passes along, and has an equal right with those above and below him to the natural flow of the water in its accustomed channel, without unreasonable detention or substantial diminution in quantity or quality, and none can make any use of it prejudicial to the other owners, unless ho ha.s acquired a right to do so by license, grant, or prescription.’ ”
After making the foregoing quotation from 13 Or. 496, 11 P. 255, the opinion in the Harris Case, continues: “The rights claimed in this suit are purely riparian in their nature, and, as such, each proprietor, in the absence of grant, license, or prescription limiting his rights, may insist that tho stream shall flow to his land in the usual quantity, at its natural place and height, and that it shall flow off his land to his neighbor below in its accustomed place and at its usual level, and this right is a right of property inseparably annexed to the soil itself and exists jure naturas as parcel of the land, which right will not be suspended or destroyed by mere nonuser, although it may be extinguished by the long-continued adverse enjoyment of others. Gould on Waters (3d Ed.) § 204. The evidence of a right by prescription ‘ought always to be clear and conclusive.’ McRae v. Small, 48 Or. 139, 85 P. 503.” This was fully recognized by a majority of the court in the Hood River Case, the majority adopting the statement of Judge MeCourt in his dissent, as follows: “Comparatively early in the judicial history of the state, this court by its decisions enforced and applied the common-law doctrine of riparian rights, as defined and established by the American and English cases and by eminent text-writers. Or. Iron Co. v. Trallenger, 3 Or. 1 (1867); Taylor v. Welch, 6 Or. 198 (1876); Hayden v. Long, 8 Or. 244 (1880); Coffman v. Robbins, 8 Or. 278 (1880); Shively v. Hume, 10 Or. 76 (1881); Shook v. Colohan, 12 Or. 239, 6 P. 503 (1885); Weiss v. Or. Iron Co., 13 Or. 496, 11 P. 255 (1886).” The majority also held that tho Water Code of 1909 did not unreasonably interfere with the vested riparian rights of a riparian owner to develop power by recognizing the rights of appropriators above to divert some of the water to the prejudice of the fullest exercise of the right of the lower riparian owner as recognized by the common law of England, upon the theory that a state either by judicial decision or legislation may reasonably construe or apply the doctrine of common-law ripatian rights. I am willing to concede that the right of riparian owners to tho uso of the entire flow of a stream for power purposes in Oregon was subordinate to the *572right of Tipper riparian owners to use water for irrigation and am inclined also to agree with the holding of the Supreme Court of Oregon in the Hood River Case that it was also subordinate to the right of the state to permit appropriation of water above the riparian land for beneficial use in irrigation. The question involved in the case at bar, however, does not involve a conflict between a riparian owner claiming power rights and upper riparian owner or appropriator claiming the right to use water for irrigation. It is a conflict between the owners of the adjoining banks of a stream to power developed by the stream in its flow along the stream bed which belongs jointly to the parties to the action. The appellee bases its right to use the water for power purposes, not upon its riparian right which obviously' is no greater than that of the owner of the adjoining bank of the stream, but upon a permit issued by the state engineer giving it a right to use the water of the stream for power purposes. It is claimed that this permit gives it a right superior to the riparian owner and this would be equally true whether the appellee were a riparian or merely an appropriator recognized by the state officials. I do not believe the Legislature of the state has the power to divest the right of the appellant to the use of the water flowing- across his land for power purposes and to grant that right to the owner of the opposite bank or to a third person. I will now state my reasons for this conclusion :
Where patents to government land were issued and rights thereby vested in a riparian owner to the usufruct of the water, the question of whether or not the act of the state or of private individuals acting under its authority is a taking of private property within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment is necessarily one to be determined by the courts and ultimately of course by the Supreme Court of the United States. The federal courts must exercise their own independent judgment in the matter, as stated by the Supreme Court in Chicot County v. Sherwood, 148 U. S. 529, 13 S. Ct. 695, 697, 37 L. Ed. 546, as follows: “In Hyde v. Stone, 20 How. [61 U. S.] 170, 175 [15 L. Ed. 874], it is said: ‘But this court has repeatedly decided that the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States over controversies between citizens of different states cannot be impaired by the laws of the states, which prescribe the modes of redress in their courts, or which regulate the distribution of their judicial power. In many cases state laws form a rule of decision for the courts of the United States, and the forms of proceeding in these courts have been assimilated to those of the states, either by legislative enactment or by their own rules. But the courts of the United States are bound to proceed to judgment and to afford redress to suitors before them in every ease to which their jurisdiction extends. They cannot abdicate their authority or duty in any ease in favor of another jurisdiction. Suydam v. Broadnax, 14 Pet. [39 U. S.] 67 [10 L. Ed. 357]; Union Bank of Tennessee v. Vaiden, 18 How. [59 U. S.] 503 [15 L. Ed. 472].’ This principle has been steadily adhered to by this court.”
That serious interference with riparian rights is a taking of property in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is recognized and decided by the Supreme Court of Oregon in Logan v. Spaulding Logging Co., 100 Or. 731, 736, 190 P. 349, 351, where it is stated: “It will be observed that the doctrine thus announced clearly asserts that interference with the natural flow of the stream, in so far as it injures the riparian proprietor, or interferes with his enjoyment of his right to the use of the stream, is a taking pro tanto of his property, which is governed by the constitutional provision above quoted. This statement of the law has been reaffirmed by this court in Trullinger v. Howe, 53 Or. 219, 97 P. 548, 99 P. 880, 22 L. R. A. (N. S.) 545, and Flinn v. Vaughn, 55 Or. 372, 106 P. 642, and must be taken as the settled law in this state, regardless of what may have been the holding in some other jurisdiction.” I will return to a consideration of that question after calling attention-to the fact that in the case at bar we are presented with a most unusual situation where the controversy is not between upper appropriators, or riparian owners, and a lower riparian owner, as in the Hood River Case, but between adjoining riparian owners as to the right to use the hydraulic power due to the fall of water as it passes over their land. No one doubted in the Hood River Case that a riparian owner, owning all the riparian lands along the stream, was entitled to hydraulic power thereon due to the fall of the stream while on its property. This was assumed in the decision and is well established by the common law. The common-law rule is stated by the Supreme Court in U. S. v. Rio Grande Dam & I. Co., 174 U. S. 690, 19 S. Ct. 770, 774, 43 L. Ed. 1141: “The unquestioned rule of the common law was that every riparian owner was entitled to the continued natural flow of the stream. It is enough, without *573other citations or quotations, to quote the language of Chancellor Kent (3 Kent, Comm. § 439): 'Every proprietor of lands on the hanks of a river has naturally an equal right to the use of the water which flows in the stream adjacent to his lands, as it was wont to run (currere solebat) without diminution or alteration. No proprietor has a right to use the water, to the prejudice of other proprietors, above or below him, unless he has a prior right to divert it, or a title to some exclusive enjoyment. He has no property in the water itself, but a simple usufruct while it passes along. “Aqua currit et debet currere ut currere solebat,” is the language of the law. Though he may use the water while it runs over his land as an incident to the land, he cannot unreasonably detain it, or give it another direction, and he must return it to its ordinary channel when it leaves his estate/ ”
In Swain v. Pemigewasset Power Co., 76 N. H. 498, 85 A. 288, 289, the Supreme Court of New Hampshire said: “The rights of riparian owners at common law to' a beneficial use of the water of the river or stream passing through or adjacent to their lands are not open to serious doubt. They are entitled to a reasonable usufruct of the water, or of the power it is capable of developing in consequence of the natural configuration of the bed of the stream opposite their respective lands.”
See Kinney on Irrigation and Water Rights, vol. 1, p. 843, § 492, as follows: “The riparian owner also has the right to the use of the water of a stream flowing by his land for the development of power, either by direct power developed from the flow of the water itself, or by the generation of electric energy for the transmission of electricity to other places than at the point where the same is developed upon the stream. The use of any riparian proprietors of the water for this purpose must be reasonable as compared to the like or other uses by other riparian proprietors upon the same stream. If the water is diverted from the stream for the purpose of getting a fall and thus developing power, after its use it must be returned to the stream for the use of the other riparian proprietors below. Any other disposition of the water after use would be termed an unreasonable use of the water.”
In the case at bar if one party should acquire the right of the other to the land opposite no one would doubt that the owner of the banks and stream bed would be entitled to develop and use the hydraulic power thereon, so long as the water was returned to the stream undiminished. The appellant contends that the adjoining property holders, owning the land to the thread of the stream which constitutes their boundary, are tenants in common to the stream and its bed. Appellant relies upon an early statute of the United States upon that subject, as follows:
“See. 2476. Navigable rivers within public lands to be public highways.
“All navigable rivers, within the territory occupied by the public lands, shall remain and be deemed public highways; and, in all cases where the opposite banks of any streams not navigable belong to different persons, the stream and the bed thereof shall become common to both.” Act May 18, 1796, c. 29, § 9, 1 Stat. 468; Act March 3, 1803, c. 27, § 17, 2 Stat. 235 (Bev. St. § 2476 [43 USCA § 931]).
The Supreme Court of the United States, in Scott v. Lattig, 227 U. S. 229, 33 S. Ct. 242, 243, 57 L. Ed. 490, 44 L. R. A. (N. S.) 107 said: “Thus, Rev. Stat. § 2476, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1567, which is but a continuation of early statutes on the subject (Acts May 18, 1796, 1 Stat. at L. 464, c. 29, § 9, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1567; March 3, 1803, 2 Stat. at L. 229, c. 27, § 17), declares: ‘All navigable rivers within the territory occupied by the public lands shall remain and be deemed public highways; and, in all cases where the opposite banks of any streams not navigable belong to different persons, the stream and the bed thereof shall become common to both;’ and of this provision it was said in St. Paul & P. R. Co. v. Schurmeir, 7 Wall. 272, 288, 19 L. Ed. 74, 78, 'the court does not hesitate to decide that Congress, in making a distinction between streams navigable and those not navigable, intended to provide that the common-law rules of riparian ownership should apply to lands bordering on the latter, but that the title to lands bordering on navigable streams should stop at the stream, and that all such streams should be deemed to be and remain public highways.’ ”
It is not necessary to decide the exact relation of the parties in and to the power, that is, whether it has all the common law attributes of a tenancy in common or otherwise, for it is sufficient to say that each owns a part of the hydraulic power developed along their common boundary and that both together own it all. If then these two adjoining owners are entitled to the entire flow of the stream as it actually reaches their land for the purpose of generating power thereon, can *574the state Legislature take the right of one owner to a part of this power and confer it upon the other in the exercise of the police power of the state? The proposition thus stated carries its own answer, for it has always been held that a state cannot in the alleged exercise of its police power take-the property of one person and confer it upon another. As stated by the Supreme Court of North Carolina in Lowe v. Harris, 112 N. C. 472, 17 S. E. 539, 540, 22 L. R. A. 379: “No law which divests property out of one person and vests it in another for his own private purposes, without the consent of the owner, has ever been held a constitutional exercise of legislative power in any state of the union,’* citing Cooley Const. Lim. 165; Wilkinson v. Leland, 27 U. S. (2 Pet.) 658, 7 L. Ed. 553; Satterlee v. Matthewson, 27 U. S. (2 Pet.) 380, 7 L. Ed. 458; Hoke v. Henderson, 15 N. C. 4, 25 Am. Dec. 677; Wales v. Stetson, 2 Mass. 143, 3 Am. Dec. 39; Calder v. Bull, 3 U. S. (3 Dall.) 394, 1 L. Ed. 651; Dash v. Van Kleek, 7 Johns. (N. Y.) 507, 5 Am. Dec. 291; U. S. Const. art. 1, § 10; N. C. Const. art. 1, § 17; Butler v. Pennsylvania, 51 U. S. (10 How.) 416, 13 L. Ed. 478; Fletcher v. Peck, 10 U. S. (6 Cranch) 137, 3 L. Ed. 178; Stanmire v. Taylor, 48 N. C. 207, 214; King v. Hunter, 65 N. C. 603, 6 Am. Rep. 754; Wesson v. Johnson, 66 N. C. 189; 1 Kent. Com. 455; Stanmire v. Powell, 35 N. C. 312.
Jn the ease at bar the basic right in controversy is the right of the appellees to divert more than 220 second feet of water for power under permits issued by the state engineer. The right to 220 second -feet is not disputed and the right of the appellees to- a flow of 75 second feet to be taken from the stream .and returned thereto above the land of the appellant is not disputed, but is not involved because it does not affect the amount of power to- be developed in the stream along the boundary of the parties. To repeat, the appellees seek to divert 1,397 second feet by the canal and head works under construction. Of this, 1,102 second feet are covered by permits; 220 second feet by a conceded and adjudicated right and 75 second feet under an adjudicated right not available to the appellees at the proposed point of diversion. That is, the controverted right of the appellees is based upon its action in appropriating this 1,082 second feet of water for power purposes. ’ The flow of the stream varies from 60,-000 second feet in time of high water to about 600 second feet in time of low water. At low water the appellant would have only about 150 second feet on its land. This amount being assured to it by the provision of the decree requiring a level of 1,070 feet at the point of diversion. The appellant’s land has no value except that which arises from the riparian right for power purposes. It was purchased by appellant for that purpose. That right is worth $30,000. If the appellees can maintain their right to divert 1347 second feet at all times it will greatly diminish, if it does not absolutely destroy, the value of appellant’s land. Can this taking be justified under the police power of the state?
This court has gone very far in recognizing the power of a city to destroy the value of real estate in the exercise of police power. Marblehead Land Co. v. City of Los Angeles (C. C. A.) 47 F.(2d) 528. But no court, so far as I am advised, has gone to the extent of holding that a state can grant a right to one individual which belongs to another because the first individual first applied for the right. The grant itself assumes title to be in the state and not in the individual. It is only upon this theory that a grant to the first applicant could be justified. Can it be said that a law which permits an officer of the state to grant rights in private property to the first applicant therefor is a valid exercise of police power? Certainly not, so long as the Constitution forbids the taking of private property without compensation. The Supreme Court of Oregon has not gone this far and its decisions both before and after the Water Code of 1909 recognize that under the Constitution of the United States the state could not divest the property of one person and confer it on another. That court having held in Hough v. Porter, 51 Or. 318, 95 P. 732, 98 P. 1083, 102 P. 728, that the Desert Land Act of 1877 severed from riparian land all rights to water thereon, and having recognized that right in the public it follows logically that the state could dispose of such waters on behalf of the public so far as riparian owners are concerned. On this theory the appellant, whose predecessor acquired the land by patent from the government after the Desert Land Act was passed, has no riparian right to the power and cannot complain that the owner of the adjoining riparian land has been granted rights inconsistent with its claim to power rights. But we hold that this construction of the federal statute is erroneous and that the appellant’s predecessor acquired by his patent a riparian right to water and power under the laws of the United States, which at the time of the *575grant recognized that the patent to riparian land convoyed such rights to the water as the state at that time recognized. In support of this well-established rule [ quote from, a decision of the Supreme Court in Brewer-Elliott Oil & Gas Co. v. United States, 260 U. S. 77, 43 S. Ct. 60, 64, 67 L. Ed. 140:
“It is true that where the United States has not in any way provided otherwise, the ordinary incidents attaching to a title traeed to a patent of the United States under the public land laws may be determined according to local rules; but this is subject to the qualification that the local rules do not impair the efficacy of the grant or the use and enjoyment of the properly by the grantee. Thus the right of the riparian owner under such grant may be limited by the law of the state either to high or low water mark or extended to the middle of the stream. Packer v. Bird, 137 U. S. 661, 669, 11 S. Ct. 210, 34 L. Ed. 819, 820.
“We said in Oklahoma v. Texas, decided May 1, 1922 [258 U. S. 574, 66 L. Ed. 771, 42 S. Ct. 406] : ‘Where the United States owns the bed of a nonnavigable stream and the upland on one or'both sides, it, of course, is free when disposing of the upland to retain all or any part of the river bed; and whether in any particular instance it has done so is essentially a question of what is intended. It by a treaty or statute or the terms of its patent it has shown that it intended to restrict the conveyance to the upland or to that and a part only of the river bed, that intention will be controlling; and, if its intention bo not otherwise shown, it will be taken to have assented that its conveyance should be construed and given effect in this particular according to the law of the state in which the land lies. Where it is disposing of tribal land of the Indians under its guardianship the same rules apply.’
“In government patents containing no words showing purpose to define riparian rights, the intention to abide the state law is inferred. Mr. Justice Bradley, speaking for the court in Hardin v. Jordan, 140 U. S. 371, 384, 11 S. Ct. 808, 813, 35 L. Ed. 428, 434, said: ‘In our judgment, the grants of the government for hinds bounded on streams and other waters, without any reservation or restriction of terms, are to be construed as to their effect according to the law of the state in which the lands lie.’ ”
Consequently, it was held by the Supremo Court in that case that an act of the state Legislature changing the definition of a navigable stream could not retroactively affect the rights of a patentee of government land. I quote from that opinion the following which occurs immediately preceding the above quotation: “It is-not for a state by courts or legislature, in dealing with the general subject of beds of streams to adopt a retroactive rule for determining navigability which would destroy a title already accrued under federal law and grant or would enlarge what actually passed to the state, at the time of her admission, under the constitutional rule of equality here invoked.”
If the Legislature of a state cannot limit the rights of a riparian owner to a stream bed by a definition of navigability inconsistent with its definition at the time a patent was issued, it is equally clear that it cannot take away vested riparian rights by a new definition of such rights limiting the right to the use and appropriation then made. Clark v. Cambridge & A. Irr., etc., Co., 45 Neb. 798, 64 N. W. 239; Crawford Co. v. Hathaway, 67 Neb. 325, 93 N. W. 781, 60 L. R. A. 889, 108 Am. St. Rep. 647; 56 A. L.. R. 277, note.
Assuming, however, that the state in the exercise of its police power may modify the rights of a riparian owner, how far have they been modified by the Water Code of Oregon? Ignoring for a moment the interpretation placed on this code by the Supreme Court of Oregon, it is to be observed that it expressly recognizes all vested rights in water. Section 1 provides: “Subject to existing rights, all waters within the state may be appropriated for beneficial use, as herein provided, and not otherwise; but nothing herein contained shall be so construed as to take away or impair the vested right of any person, firm, corporation or association to any water.” This declaration is repeated in section 70 (Code Or. 1930, § 47-403) as follows:
“Section 70. Vested Rights Preserved.—
“1. Nothing in this aet contained shall impair the vested right of any person, association or corporation. * * *
“8. * * * This act shall not be held to bestow upon any person, association or corporation any riparian rights where no such rights existed prior to the time this aet takes effect.”
Section 70, subd. 2, provides that: “Actual application of water to beneficial use pri- or to the passage of this aet by or under authority of any riparian proprietor, or by or under authority of his or its predecessors in interest, shall be deemed to create in such riparian proprietor a vested right to the ex*576tent of the actual application to beneficial use; provided, such use has not been abandoned for a continuous period of two years.”
Subd. 3 recognizes the right of a riparian owner to proceed with his construction of works for the application of water to beneficial use. Now the use of water by a riparian owner is the exercise of a right common to all riparian owners, and is not adverse to them. It is not measured by the needs of the riparian owner, but by the capacity of the stream to supply water to all riparian owners along its banks. Oliver v. Robnett, 190 Cal. 51, 210 P. 408. The distinction is pointed out by the Supreme Court of Oregon in a late ease. In re Water Rights of the Deschutes River and Tributaries, 134 Or. 623, 704, 286 P. 563, 294 P. 1049, 1051, from which I quote as follows: “Where the old riparian right system prevails, a riparian owner using water in that capacity is, in effect, always a tenant in common with other riparian owners on the same stream, and the amount to which sueh riparian owner is entitled varies with the reasonable demands of the other riparian proprietors. In other words, it is not a right to a definite amount of water while an appropriator is always a tenant in severalty and a decree can be rendered under the statute recognizing the right of an appropriator for a definite amount of water.” See, also, In re Water Rights of Silvies River, 115 Or. 27, 31, points 32, 33, 237 P. 322.
Hence, in so far as the Water Code recognized as a vested right, the right to water appropriated to his own use and beneficially used by a riparian owner, it did not limit (it expressly disavowed an intent to limit the right), but it extended the right of a riparian owner by recognizing his actual appropriation as- creating a right in severalty which might exceed his riparian right, although it is of course true that the appropriation might be less than the riparian right. In the Hood River Case, supra, the Supreme Court of Oregon not only held that the riparian right of the Pacific Power & Light Company was subordinate to the' appropriations above, but also that the Power Company was not entitled to an adjudication that it had any riparian right because it had not exercised its right prior to the enactment of the Water Code of 1909. So construed, the Water Act by its own force destroyed all riparian rights which had not been beneficially used, solely because of sueh nónuse, and this without giving any opportunity to exercise the right after the enactment of the law. So construed in its application to the rights of appellant it is a clear violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the 1 Constitution. I hold that the Water Code did not and could not wholly destroy the power rights of the appellant. The appellees are not relying upon their riparian power rights. Their action in securing a permit from the state engineer and their development work in the stream bed is avowedly hostile to the appellant’s claim. Their possession is adverse. Upon the completion of their diverting works and the installation of their power plant they will receive a certificate of ownership of the power thus developed, all in utter disregard of the appellant’s rights in the stream, and this right of appellees is sustained by the decision of the court below. The decree of the court below is based upon a finding that the appellant failed to establish any water right. This finding of a lack of proof of a right is the equivalent of a finding of no water right, for appellant’s case is predicated upon its riparian right which is thus put in proof. This finding and decree would be conclusive in any future litigation between the parties to establish their respective rights.
The exercise of control over water inconsistent with the rights of a riparian owner where the control thus exercised might ripen into an aflverse title, has always been held to be sufficient ground for the intervention of a court of equity by way of injunctive relief. As stated by the Supreme Court of Oregon, Weiss v. Oregon Iron & Steel Co., 13 Or. 503, 11 P. 255, 258: “Nor do we think the objection to the exercise of the jurisdiction well-taken. Mr. High says: £A riparian proprietor, owning to the center of a stream, is entitled to the aid of equity to prevent a diversion of the waters from their natural channel. Nor does the neglect of complainants to use or appropriate the water-power, or the fact that they have as yet sustained but small pecuniary damage, or that defendants would be subjected to heavy expense if compelled to restore the water to its original channel, present sueh objections as would warrant a court of equity in refusing the relief.’ High, Inj. § 795, and authorities cited.”
To deny that relief without reservation would destroy appellant’s right and vest a part of it in appellees. On the other hand, if each of the two riparian owners can prevent the other from developing power, neither can do so, and the right is rendered worthless to either or both. It follows that a full recognition of the common law riparian right to full and continuous flow would destroy the right. *577Here is a legitimate field for the exercise of the police power of the state to give to the owner desiring to utilize his power the right to make the necessary changes on his land to do so. On the other hand, the rights of the appellant should be fully protected. This can be accomplished, I think, by granting an injunction unless tile appellees shall file a disclaimer to more than one-half of the flow of the stream, after the deduction of the flow of 220 second feet to which it has an acknowledged priority, and an agreement to pay a reasonable sum for the use of all water above one-half of the remaining flow of the stream after deduction of 220 second feet, said amount to he fixed by the court,, and payable monthly for such power so used for the previous month, the appellees to have the right to use the full flow of 1,347 second feet if the water level of 1,070 feet permits until such time as the appellant is ready to utilize its one-half of the flow of the stream, less 220 feet.