Johnson Rancho County Water District v. County of Yuba

Demurrer to plaintiff’s amended complaint was sustained without leave to amend. Judgment of dismissal followed. We hold this was error but unprejudicial for reasons which will be developed below.

The amended complaint pleaded ownership by plaintiff-appellant water district of four appropriative water rights. (Water Resources Applications Numbers 15204, 15205, 15563 and 15674.) It alleged these rights had been acquired by a written transfer dated January 8, 1959, from Wheatland Water District. Also alleged was a wrongful attempt by defendant-respondent county and defendant-respondent Yuba County Water Agency to interfere with those rights. The relief prayed for (unimportant in the discussion which follows) was a declaration of the parties’ respective rights, a decree declaring a constructive trusteeship for plaintiff’s benefit, and quieting plaintiff’s title.

A demurrer on both general and special grounds was filed and contemporaneously therewith a demand (under Code Civ. Proc., § 449) for production of the written instrument of transfer dated January 8, 1959, which in the amended complaint had been pleaded according to its legal effect but which had not been appended to the…