Court Opinion

ID: 9791804
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:18:21.831989+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:38.686003
License: Public Domain

JOHN A. McGUIRE, Superior Court Judge
(specially concurring).
I concur in the disposition of the case by the Court except in one particular; I believe that the case should he remanded for the taking of further testimony as to what, if any, ..changes in the flume and inverted $iphon at Sand Tank Wash should be made in order to render it capable of carrying the .amount of water it should lawfully be required to carry, as the Court did in reference to the structure at Wash No. 1, instead of. qopipletely vacating the injunction as to the Sand Tank Wash flume. I agree that Gila River Ranch cannot be required to widen the wash, nor maintain the dike built by Maricopa County, nor be restrained from conveying the property.
The case of Southern Pacific Co. v. Proebstel, 61 Ariz. 412, 424, 150 P.2d 81, 86, involving a dike built by the railroad to protect its land and to cause flood waters of Coyote Wash to be turned back to the wash dealt with an entirely different situation. In that case, the court stated:
“Under the unquestioned facts as disclosed by this record defendant was clearly entitled to a directed verdict at the close of the case for the reasons that it was apparent from all the competent testimony of the witnesses that defendant’s dike intercepted and returned to Coyote Wash flood waters, merely increasing the flow of a well-defined and natural watercourse without exceeding the stream-carrying capacity which, in the exercise of its lawful right to protect its own property, it could do; the learned trial judge apparently erroneously concluded that the case was governed by Maricopa etc., v. Roosevelt Irr. Dist., supra.” (Emphasis added)
The Tucson Arroyo cases culminating in City of Tucson v. Koerber, 82 Ariz. 347, 313 P.2d 411, must also be distinguished. These, cases involved the placing of a structure in *171an arroyo but not the building of anything obstructing waters outside of the arroyo; hence there could be no liability for flood waters which could never be carried within the arroyo in the first place and hence were not obstructed by the culvert.
In the case at bar the defendant, Gila River Ranch, for its own benefit maintains a raised irrigation ditch running for miles and which passes between the Sand Tank Mountains and the Gila River at approximately right angles to the normal flow of water draining from the mountains to the river.
In the California case of Costello v. Bowen, 80 Cal.App.2d 621, 182 P.2d 615, 620, the court said:
“But the drastic rule which allows a property owner to divert such waters to the lands of others only applies to flood waters in the strict sense, that is, waters escaping because of their height from the confinement of a stream and running over adjacent property. Implicit in the definition of flood waters is the element of abnormality; they are flood waters because of their escape from the usual channels under conditions which do not ordinarily occur.” (Italics added.)
The plaintiffs’ land has been flooded four times in seven years, which is not so rare and extraordinary that it need not be guarded against; hence if defendant’s structures are responsible the defendant must modify them as necessary.
As was mentioned in the majority opinion, the case was not tried on the theory that a high flow channel existed, that is, a channel above the normal banks of the wash, in which water flows at times of high water. Such waters would be considered stream waters and not flood waters. Miller & Lux v. Madera Canal & Irr. Co., 155 Cal. 59, 99 P. 502, 22 L.R.A., N.S., 391; Herminghaus v. Southern California Edison Co., 200 Cal. 81, 252 P. 607.
I do not consider this fatal to plaintiffs’ case. I am not convinced that the structures built by defendant would not be the cause of flooding even after the flume at Wash No. 1 is built. Hence I would remand for retrial of this very question.
In my opinion the proper standard to be applied to both flumes is that they must be of sufficient size to carry all water, both the natural and normal flow, and such eXcessive flow as may reasonably be anticipated at the point involved, and this whether such anticipated waters be called stream or flood waters. Defendant is not of course required to make provision for abnormal flood waters not reasonably foreseeable, neither is it required to take steps to prevent flooding which would occur even if its ditch were not there.