Grant Realty Co. v. Ham, Yearsley & Ryrie

Citations

• 96 Wash. 616
• 165 P. 495
• 1917 Wash. LEXIS 622

Syllabus

<p>Waters and Water Courses — Appropriation for Irrigation — Good Faith — Evidence. Where an extensive irrigation project was inherently speculative in character, want of good faith in instituting condemnation proceedings is not established by the fact that plaintiff was without means to purchase the land to be irrigated, and testified that he supposed he was “selling out” in negotiating with men of wealth to finance the project, where he did not mean that literally and expected to retain an interest.</p> <p>Same — Appropriation—Good Faith — -Judgment in Condemnation —Conolusiveness. An order permitting a condemnation for an extensive irrigation project is conclusive upon the question of plaintiffs’ good faith up to the time of the judgment, as against the defendants in the condemnation proceedings and subsequent grantees.</p> <p>Same — Appropriation—Diligence—Evidence—Statutes. In condemnation proceedings to acquire a dam site and right of way for the irrigation of nonriparian lands by the diversion of the waters of a lake appropriated under Rem. Code, §§ 6318 and 6319, the time reasonably consumed in the condemnation suit, which was resisted by subsequent appropriators and riparian owners, must be construed as time necessarily consumed in the performance of the work of construction, in determining the question of plaintiffs’ diligence and whether his rights will relate back to the time of his appropriation, under §§ 6318, 6319, which provide that the appropriator must commence construction of the works within three months, and excavation and diversion within six months and must diligently and continuously prosecute the same to completion, and that by a strict compliance with such rules, his right to the use of the waters relates back to the time the notice of appropriation was posted; in view of the statutes in pari materia, § 6316, providing that, as between appropriators, “the first in time is the first in right,” and § 6329 giving the nonriparian owner the righ