Lindsay Strathmore Irrigation District v. Superior Court

This isan original petition filed in this court praying for a writ of mandate requiring respondents to set for trial an action pending in the Superior Court of Tulare County wherein the petitioner here and the plaintiff there is seeking, under the right of eminent domain, to condemn the right to take water from within the boundaries of the Consolidated Peoples Ditch Company to lands lying without such boundaries. The respondents filed a general demurrer and answer to the petition. The general demurrer will be overruled for reasons which will hereafter appear. We will consider the cause upon its merits.

The petitioner is an irrigation district organized and existing under an act of the legislature entitled, “An act to provide for the organization and government of irrigation districts and to provide for the acquisition or construction thereby of works for the irrigation of lands embraced within such districts and also to provide for the distribution of water for irrigation purposes,” approved March 31, 1897 (Stats. of 1897, p. 254), and the acts amendatory thereof and supplementary thereto. Under section 15 of this act petitioner possesses, the power of eminent domain and may…