Stoops

Action to enjoin the maintenance and operation of a certain ditch across the land of plaintiff in such a manner as to cause injury thereto. Damages were also claimed in the sum of five hundred dollars.

Plaintiff is the owner of a twenty-acre vineyard, being part of a certain colony tract situated in Fresno County. Defendants are the owners of other parcels in the same colony which are situated to the south of and contiguous to plaintiff’s holding. Defendants’ lands are irrigated by means of an open ditch of the usual construction, some twelve feet in width, which carries the water from a main irrigation canal about a mile north of plaintiff’s land and discharges it on the lands of defendants. In order to accomplish this it is necessary to carry the water across the westerly side of plaintiff’s land. Some sixteen years prior to the commencement of the action this distributing ditch was constructed, and since its establishment it has been maintained by the defendants along and across the west end of plaintiff’s property. The complaint charges that defendants have so negligently operated the ditch as to cause it to overflow, and also that they have maintained the water therein at…