Hewitt v. San Jacinto & Pleasant Valley Irrigation District

Citations

• 124 Cal. 186
• 56 P. 893
• 1899 Cal. LEXIS 966

Syllabus

<p>Irrigation—Contract of Water Company to Deliver Water—Usage as to Accumulation—Interpretation of Contract.—A contract conferring “tlie right to have conveyed and delivered,” by mean ■ of and through the canals, dams, and gates of a water company “an amount of water equal to one irrigating inch of water to each seven acres” of a tract of land comprising twenty acres, and requiring the purchaser to notify the water company when the water was required for use upon the lands in a form of notice to be prescribed by the company, does not of itse'.f limit the right of the purchaser to a continual flow of oue-srventh of an inch to the acre; but the reasonable inference from the provisions of the contract is that such continual flow was not contemplated, and the interpreta ion of the contract may be aided by proof of the usage and practice of the parties to accumulate the water for thirty days, and deliver the ‘equivalent amount in full flow for forty-eig-ht hours.</p> <p>Id.—Transfer to Irrigation District—Notice of Usage.—Such usage of the water company will prevail in the interpretation of the contract, as against an irrigation district to which the water company transferred all of its rights, subject to the rights of purchasers therefrom, and which took with full knowledge of such usage, and conformed: thereto for a considerable period of time.</p> <p>Id.—Pleading—‘‘Reasonable Regulations’’—Finding as to “Usages.” Under a complaint alleging in substance that in accordance with the “reasonable regulations” governing the water company and the irrigation district, they were accustomed to deliver the water accumulated in the manner specified, and an answer denying the same, issues are raised sufficiently broad to include usages to which they respectively conformed tneir mode of business, and to support a finding as to such “usages.”</p> <p>Id.—Proof of General and Reasonable Usage.—Evidence that the water provided for in the contracts of the water company involved in the