Davey

This appeal is from a judgment in the defendants’ favor upon their answer and cross-complaint in an action brought by the plaintiff to enjoin the defendants from demolishing or otherwise interfering with a certain dam and ditches, which the plaintiff claimed the right to maintain as a means for the diversion of the waters of a stream for use upon his own land. The defendants in their answer denied the plaintiff’s alleged right to maintain said dam and ditches, and to the use of any waters diverted thereby from the stream in question, and in their cross-complaint asserted the sole right in themselves to the ownership and use of said waters, and the plaintiff’s threatened or attempted interference with said rights through the diversion thereof by means of said dam and ditches they sought to have the court enjoin.

The stream in question was a small perennial rivulet known as Houten Creek, situated near Cobb, in Lake County. It had its source on land which prior to the year 1913 was owned by the Farmers’ Savings Bank of Lakeport, which conveyed the same in that year to H. C. Davey, the plaintiff, and to W. R. Prather and H. L. Boggs. In the year 1915 said Davey, Prather, and Boggs…