Bagdad Copper Corporation, a Corporation v. John Phillip Zannaras and J. P. Robinson, Jr., Co-Partners, and U.S. Tungsten Corporation

The appellant, a Delaware corporation, here called Bagdad, and appellees Zannaras and Robinson, citizens of Arizona, were engaged in mining and milling of ores in Arizona. Bagdad was a subsequent upstream appropriator of water from Burro Creek. Zannaras and Robinson, here called defendants’, held prior rights in the stream, diverting their water some seven miles below Bag-dad’s point of diversion. Each party had received from the State of Arizona a certificate of water right. That of Bagdad dated April 12, 1944, recites its right to 315,000,000 gallons of water per annum, with priority as of November 5, 1941. Defendants’ certificate is dated January 2, 1945, and is for 3,000,000 gallons per annum, with priority from August 27, 1940.

The action below was brought March 5, 1951, by Bagdad, alleging its own appropriation, and that defendants’ purported certificate of water right was obtained by fraud in that defendants, in their proof of appropriation, falsely represented to the State Water Commissioner that they had actually applied the amount of water sought to be appropriated by them to a beneficial use. It was alleged that the Commissioner relied upon these false statements in…